Champagne Supernova
by SDB7887
Summary: A dark piece of Jasper's past returns to haunt him - can a new addition to the Cullen family help save them all? A/J, EM/R, E/B, OC/you'll see!. Post-BD; some spoilers. Rated T for some violence. First fanfic. Please R&R! See my profile for posting update
1. Part I: Prologue

_My first fanfic - let me know what you think! I promise the summary will make sense eventually, we just have to get there - when, I can't say for sure, because I'm just going wherever the characters take me. Obviously, I own none of the characters from the Twilight series (and with the way the others just play out new scenes in my head when I'm trying to focus on other things, I'm pretty sure the additions own themselves...)_. Please review, I love them and it'll help convince me to finish the story! :)

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Prologue

_He was approaching the Volturi, cautiously, as though he were afraid of the reaction his news would elicit. _

_"I'm leaving the guard." The strange, dark haired man announced this simply and determinedly. "I greatly appreciate all the Volturi have done for me – you gave me a name and a home, when I had none; you trained me to use my abilities in ways I never knew possible. However, as you know, certain practices have never been a fit for me, and I believe that I must strike out on my own and find a home that is a better fit for me."_

_"Have you decided this for certain?"_

_"Yes, I have."_

_"Come here, my son," the aged vampire Aro said. The man placed his hand in Aro's. "I understand you decision to leave, my son. And I see that you have made your decision and that there will be no changing your mind. However, know always that you have a place among the Volturi."_

_"Thank you, my Lord."_

Abruptly, the vision changed.

_The dark haired man was wandering through the woods, looking for something. He seemed pleased when he reached the road. Shortly after turning onto the road, he turned off of it onto a long drive that led to a large white house. He walked confidently up the steps and raised his hand to knock on the door, which opened a fraction of a second before his hand would have come in contact with it._

_"Hello" the man said, not seeming at all surprised by the sudden, unbidden opening of the door. "I have come to join your coven."_

"Alice!"

"_What_, Jasper?" I asked, slightly frustrated with my husband, who had just yelled my name. "I'm right next to you, there's no need to yell."

"I've been saying your name for a full five minutes, Alice. What did you see?"

"We're getting a new family member," I said, happily, my irritation subsiding immediately, unable to repress my excited smile.


	2. Part I: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Joining us for dinner tonight, Hunter?"

I looked up at the angelic face, leering at me. It seemed a paradox how someone so lovely could look so disgustingly vicious. But that was Jane.

"No, thank you," I replied, curtly. "I think I'll find my own food this evening."

Jane shrugged and headed off down the long hallway. She was used to me refusing to dine with them; as were they all. That was the one thing that I had never been able to get used to, despite spending nearly 80 years with the Volturi clan. It went against every fiber of my being, but somehow the idea of drinking human blood was repulsive to me.

As I walked along the cool, dark underground corridors that led to the city, my fledging thoughts of leaving the Volturi once again surfaced. I had been thinking about it ever since I had heard about the "vegetarian" Cullen clan in North America who fed only on animals. Somehow, Carlisle Cullen had managed to spend his entire vampiric life having never fed on a human, and, apparently, the vampires that he had created had been able to follow his lead.

It was similar to what I myself did, feeding on humans only when in the most dire of circumstances. I desperately wanted to go find these vampires who freely chose to go against their nature, much as I did. There had been stories of other vampires – not created by Carlisle himself, who, as legend tells, only turns those who are irreversibly dying – but who had once consumed human blood and decided to change their ways. I had heard these stories and they gave me hope, but I did not know how they would accept me, a member of the Volturi guard. Nor did I know how the Volturi themselves would react if I left their guard.

Being a member of the Volturi guard was a rather coveted position among many vampires, offering a life of luxury and safety that many nomadic vampires did not otherwise experience. I had once been one of these nomadic vampires, until the Volturi had found me and decided my abilities would be useful for them.

By now, I had reached the city limits and took off at a run to the mountains, in order to find my prey for the evening. The hunting in the Alps had never been particularly exciting, as most of the animals were not large predators, but it worked well for my purposes since I typically tried to keep myself hungry. Despite the raging thirst that I constantly felt, it improved my position in the guard, since it kept my eyes dark, as many found my golden eyes to be disturbing – a reminder of our differences. When the others were well-fed, their eyes donned a bright crimson color, while, due to my diet, my eyes turned a bright gold instead. If I had to feed on humans, the effect on my eyes was almost instantaneous, adding a crimson hue to the gold. At first, it had been incredibly difficult to manage the constant thirst, but over the decades, I have become used to it, making it a dull ache rather than an intense burn.

Tonight, I was preoccupied as I hunted my prey, spending the time worrying about how I would convince the Volturi to let me leave the guard. It was not an unheard of thing, but it was, nonetheless, extremely rare. I worried even more about this since I intended to seek out the Cullens. Although there was never any outward hostility between the Cullens and Volturi, the relationship between them was wrought with underlying tension. Much of this came from the fact that many of the Cullen clan had incredible gifts, causing the Volturi to covet them for their elite guard; however, the Cullens had repeatedly turned down all invitations to join.

And if there was one thing that the Volturi did not take well, it was rejection.

I stalked a herd of Alpine Ibex, silently creeping up behind them, while I considered my possible courses of action. Of course, I could always stay with the Volturi. The hunger was not unbearable, and I did have a good life here in Italy. I had to admit, the Volturi had taken care of me. They had found me nameless and homeless, knowing nothing of myself or who I had been and took me in, giving me a purpose for living. They had learned of my particular talents of tracking not only humans, but other vampires as well; they had trained me to hone these talents and had profited greatly from them in the last 80 years. I pounced, taking down two of the creatures at once and letting the rest go free. I did not want to drink too much, for fear of lightening my eyes too much.

As I fed, I thought about the option of going to the Cullens. What would I say to them? 'Hi. I'm one of the members of the Volturi guard that came to kill you all a while back and I want to be a part of your coven.' Like that would go over well. I had heard stories about Carlisle Cullen's compassion, but I do not think anyone could be that compassionate. However, I really did not believe I could go on living with the Volturi; not with the way I watched them round up innocent humans every night to satiate their thirst. Just the thought of it made my stomach churn. But what would I do if the Cullens turned me away? Go back to the nomadic lifestyle that I had before I had joined the Volturi? With my tracking abilities, I would obviously never go hungry – whether I was feeding on animals or humans – but it was a lonely lifestyle. It was the kind of life that made you want to feed on humans, just to be around them for the company.

I shook my head to clear it of these thoughts and started the run back to Volterra.

*******

I stood in the anteroom outside of where the Volturi spent their days, staring impatiently at the human secretary, waiting for her to tell me I could enter. My impatience stemmed from my nervousness to get the audience over with. I could feel the tension in my muscles, stemming from the anxiety I was feeling over telling the Volturi that I would be leaving; I knew that if I had a heart that could beat, it would be racing right now.

For what seemed like the hundredth time in the last few minutes, I ran though the script of what I had decided to say in my head. It had to be diplomatic – I had to let them know I was leaving, but not insult them in the process. I knew only too well what happened to those who insulted the Volturi; I was usually the one who hunted them.

"They're ready for you."

The secretary's voice shook me out of my reverie. She was new. I could tell by the way her pulse quickened and her voice shook – imperceptible to a human, but obvious to the sensitive hearing of vampires – that she was not used to the idea of working for vampires. That would change before long; but once she got too comfortable they would kill her, as they did the last girl. If she never learned to be comfortable, they would kill her as well. Either way, the poor girl was destined to die and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. I slowly walked towards the ornate doors leading to the audience chamber.

The door swung open and I cautiously stepped forward into the room, moving much more slowly than a vampire typically would through the crowd towards the three Ancient Ones, trying not to think of how they might react to what I was about to tell them.

"Hunter, my son," Aro said kindly, "why have you sought this audience?"

I remained on guard, not letting myself be taken in by Aro's seemingly kind expression and words. I had been with the Volturi for far too long to let this performance relax me; I had seen Aro's true nature for nearly a century, always masked by kindness.

"My Lords. I am leaving the guard," I announced, summoning all the determination that I could. "I greatly appreciate all the Volturi have done for me – you gave me a name and a home, when I had none; you trained me to use my abilities in ways I never knew possible. However, as you know, certain practices have never been a fit for me, and I believe that I must strike out on my own and find a home that is a better fit for me."

"Have you decided this for certain?"

"Yes, I have," I said, looking Aro in his milky crimson eyes.

"Come here, my son," the aged vampire said. I knew what Aro wanted. He had a gift to read people's thoughts by simply touching them; he wanted to be sure that I did not intend to go against the Volturi. He wanted to know for certain my reasons for leaving.

I moved closer and put my hand in his outstretched palm, knowing full well that the moment I did it, he would know all of my thoughts.

Aro frowned in concentration for a moment and then released my hand. "I understand you decision to leave, my son. And I see that you have made your decision and that there will be no changing your mind. However, know always that you have a place among the Volturi."

"Thank you, my Lord."

*******

_Just like Aro_, I thought, _always leaving his options open in case decisions are changed._ Aro would not want lose an opportunity to gain one of his best trackers back if the Cullens rejected me. _And, if they do, maybe I will come back. Perhaps it is not so bad…_

I viciously shook my head in frustration, refusing to allow myself to fall back under the Volturi's spell. Although Aro's gift was supposedly being able to read thoughts, his real talent was his ability to shroud his devious intentions in kindness, pulling you in, convincing you that what he wants is really what you want. I shoved the last of my few belongings in my single bag and threw it over my shoulder.

I had a plane to catch.


	3. Part I: Chapter 2

_I was planning to update this only like once a week or so, but decided that since I had a few chapters done already, I may as well update a little more often. Only one though – I don't want to get too ahead of myself, since I don't know where the characters are going to take me next ___

_I hope you enjoy! Please R&R!_

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Chapter 2

I could have stolen a car, I suppose. It would not have been that difficult, but I always preferred to travel by foot. It was faster. And it allowed me to truly use my senses in order to find the Cullens. I knew they were residing in Forks, Washington, but the name of a town is not that great of a help when you are running through the woods. Luckily, I could smell that they had been out hunting recently – there was vampire all over these woods. All I had to do was follow the scent to their lair. It seemed like they had no interest in being careful; like they were advertising where they were. They almost made it too easy for me.

That is when I saw it. A single piece of paper nailed to a tree.

"_Dear Traveler._

_The Cullen House is this way. --  
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_Love, Alice."_

Definitely too easy. They knew I was coming.

Suddenly I felt a wariness that I had not before. The note itself was not threatening, but I had not expected them to know I was coming. This was obviously due to lack of foresight on my part; I had known that one of the Cullens had the gift of seeing visions of the future and would naturally know that I was coming. My hope had allowed me to let my guard down, but with the note, my usual cautiousness returned. Several scenarios of ambushes started playing through my head. What if they were waiting for me there in order to kill me? But, then why this note? Surely, they would rather that I not show up at all than having to kill me? I considered turning back, but realized that I had nowhere to turn back to. Except back to the Volturi.

At this thought, I ripped the note from the tree and stalked off in the direction that the arrow had pointed. It was my only option.

*******

Throughout the rest of the journey, I found more notes, pointing me in the direction of the house. I followed the arrows, constantly on guard and carefully going through every ambush scenario. I moved slower than I could have in order to give myself time to familiarize myself with my surroundings and to plan how to counter any attack that they may have planned. By time I reached the sign proclaiming I had reached the road to the Cullens' House, I knew exactly what I would do in every possible scenario. Every scenario except that in which they let me join their coven. I had no clue what I would say if they welcomed me.

I was on the road a little over an hour when I smelled the vampires; I was getting close. Less than a minute later, I found the sign.

"_Dear Traveler._

_You have reached the Cullens' Driveway._

_See you soon!_

_Love, Alice."_

I paused at the end of the drive for a fraction of a second, arguing with myself over whether to go any closer. However, it was a pointless gesture because I knew from the beginning that I would. No matter what the consequences might be, I had to go up to that house. I had come too far to turn back now.

I moved slowly up the driveway, staying to the shadows of the tall trees that lined the drive. All of my senses were alert for an attack at any second. My wariness intensified when I reached the end of trees; ahead of me lay a large, coverless field. The large white house was in the exact center of it. There was no way I could avoid the clearing. Taking a deep breath, more out of instinct than out of necessity, I tensed for attack and stepped out into the clearing.

Nothing happened.

No one attacked. In fact, there was no one in sight. My acute senses allowed me to hear that there were vampires inside the house, but none seemed to be outside of it. I listened closely to the occupants of the house as I cautiously creeped forward. They did not seem to be nervous or planning for attack; instead they seemed to be happily enjoying the day. I heard a piano playing, the sounds of a game, nonchalant chatter about clothing, but nothing that would tip me off to an attack. But, of course, they knew I was coming, so it was completely possible that this was nothing but a charade.

I reached the porch steps. I bolstered my confidence and, squaring my shoulders, I ascended the wooden stairs leading to the entrance. At the door, I raised my hand to knock, at the same time hearing all previous noise inside the house stop. A fraction of a second before I knocked, the door was opened by a tall, blonde man with a kindly face. I lowered my hand, and sensing no pending attack, I spoke.

"Hello," I said simply. Not knowing what else to say, I decided to just get straight to the point. "I've come to join your coven."

"HUNTER!!!" a high voice trilled, seconds before a small woman with spiky dark hair came gracefully bounding out the house, capturing me in a hug before I could move out of the way of the unexpected attack. "I'm so happy you're finally here! Goodness, I feel like I've been waiting for you _forever_! I'm Alice, by the way. Oh, good, you found my notes!"

"Alice, I think you're scaring him," a voice drawled. It came from a bronze-haired man standing to the right of the blond vampire, with his arm protectively around a dark-haired woman.

"Well, I'm _sorry_. I just wanted to say hello to my favorite brother. Jeesh," the small woman huffed and stalked back inside the house, pouting.

"Sorry about that," the blonde man said, "Alice can be a little overzealous sometimes."

I simply nodded in response, still in shock of my greeting.

"My name is Carlisle," he continued, "and this is my wife Esme." He gestured to the woman standing next to him. "As you may have been able to tell from Alice's reaction, we've already made the decision to let you stay. So, welcome to your new home, Hunter."

"Yay!" Alice piped up from the position she had taken next to a tall blond man, covered in battle scars. "I'm so excited that you're finally here! This is my Jasper," she said, indicating the man next to her. Jasper inclined his head; I nodded in response.

"Stop worrying. We're not going to attack you. I'm Edward," the bronze-haired one said, stepping forward and extending my hand. Still slightly wary, I took his hand cautiously. He gestured to the woman next to him, "This is my wife Bella and our daughter Renessme." It was at that moment that I noticed a small girl, who looked about 7 years old, peeking out from behind her mother.

I remembered the story of this fledgling half-vampire; she was the one we had come to kill the year before, believing that the Cullens had created a vampire child. When it was discovered that she was only half-vampire and was able to age, it was decided that she should be allowed to live. I quietly nodded towards the woman and the girl.

"Emmett," said a large, dark-haired man, stepping forward, extending his hand. I shook it, slowly becoming more comfortable with the unexpected welcome. "My wife Rosalie," he continued, inclining his head towards a beautiful, blonde who was slightly back from the group.

"Well," Carlisle said, "why don't you come inside and we can give you a tour of the house."

"Thank you," I responded, taking the first step into the house.

"You're room is upstairs, the third floor, second door on the left. Come with me and I'll show you," Esme said, warmly. Esme started towards the stairs and I followed carefully, still slightly wary of the large group of vampires surrounding me. Alice bounded up the stairs after us, talking constantly the entire time.

"Oh, I'm so happy you're here! We're going to be great friends, I hope you know that. You and Jasper are going to get along great as well. I'm so happy because now he's gonna have a friend that he can be close with; I always felt so bad that he didn't really seem to have anyone but me. But that's all fixed now! Oh, I can't wait for you to tell us all about yourself. I mean, as soon as you decide to tell us, I'm going to know all of it, but it will be really exciting to hear it anyway. Seriously, though, I've been waiting for what seems like the longest time! Months! For a while it was really clear, but you must have had a little bout of indecisiveness because it got a bit foggy there for a while. I was super excited when it got all clear again. Even though yesterday I thought you were going to come here and kill us. But a second later I knew you wouldn't so, no worries, I didn't tell anyone about that bit. Well, I tried not to. Edward found out and told everyone. But that's totally not my fault; it's just cause he can read my mind. Oh, Hunter! You're here!"

"Alice, dear," Esme said, gently, "I think we should give Hunter a moment to settle in. There will be plenty of time to talk later."

"That's true," Alice said, brightly. "There'll be a whole eternity!" With that she bounded back down the stairs, with Esme following at a rather more civilized pace.

Putting my bag down in my room, I was in shock. I had not expected this kind of a reaction. At the very least, I had expected some suspicion. Instead, the moment I walked in, I had a sister who instantly adored me and a room already prepared for me. I did not know how to respond to this kind of hospitable treatment. To collect my thoughts I wandered about my new room.

It was painted all in white, with white carpet and black furniture. There was a large window that took up most of a wall, looking out into the woods surrounding the house. I walked by a floor to ceiling bookcase, already stocked with books of all types and a high-tech stereo with rows of CDs underneath it. The rest of the furniture consisted of a few chairs and a low coffee table. On the table there was a note:

"_Dear Hunter._

_I hope you like the books. You're gonna be a voracious reader._

_I'm glad you like chess. I think you and Jasper will really enjoy playing. (The board is inside the coffee table)._

_Love, Alice."_

I hesitantly lifted the lid of the coffee table. Inside, as promised, there was a chess set. I was slightly unnerved by the fact that she knew I played chess, but knew that I should not be surprised. I was slightly more confused about the books, however, as I was barely able to read. In fact, even the simple notes had been a struggle. I glanced over at the books and shrugged; I guess she knew more than I did about my future.

*******

After carefully inspecting my room, I ventured back downstairs. I found the Cullens all sitting in the living room, seemingly unworried about the strange vampire wandering about their home.

"So, Hunter," Carlisle said, conversationally, "why don't you tell us where you come from. Alice has told us so little about you."

I had decided on my way that if they asked about my past I would be completely honest. And so I began the story.

"Well-"

"Oh, what an _excellent_ story! Hunter, I can't believe that that's really your life!" Alice exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

"Alice," Emmett said, irritably, "can you please give the rest of us a chance to hear the story before you begin commenting on it?"

Alice stuck her tongue out at him, but said nothing further and so I began my story.

"Well, I know very little of before I was turned in the 1870s. I have no memory of my life before this; others," I said, carefully avoiding the word 'Volturi' for now, "have told me this is likely due to a choleric fever that I may have been in right before I was turned. I never met the vampire who turned me, and so, I woke up with an unquenchable thirst and hundreds of questions with no one to answer them. Unlike most newborns, who wildly begin to kill upon turning, I was born with an inexplicable revulsion to human blood. And so, during my nomadic existence, I fed primarily on animals. I had extraordinary abilities to hunt, so I would hunt humans for excitement, but never killing them; I would always let them go free.

"This is how the Volturi found out about me. My hunting for sport had attracted attention and it was not good attention. However, I was just as good at eluding, and although I did not know what I was running from, I had the self-preservation instincts to know that I did not want to be found. In this manner, I managed to elude the Volturi for over 30 years."

"Thirty years?" Carlisle asked. "Impressive."

I inclined my head in thanks of the praise and continued, "Eventually, they did find me. Recognizing my abilities, the Volturi chose not to kill me and instead offered me a position in the Volturi Guard, which I accepted and have been a member of since-"

My speech was cut off by a sudden hiss. I looked sharply in the direction it had come from, to see Bella had leapt from her seat and was now in a crouch, ready to attack. I braced myself for it, my mind flying through all possible methods by which I would survive an attack by eight vampires (well, eight and a half vampires) on their own territory.

"Bella, sit down and let him finish his story. He is a guest in our house and this is no way to treat a guest," Carlisle said, authoritatively. Turning to me with a look of chagrin, he apologetically said, "Sorry for that. We have recently had some difficult relations with the Volturi, as I'm sure you know. Please continue."

I quickly glanced around, appraising the danger of the situation. Bella returned to her seat, protectively pulling her daughter closer to her. Edward put a restraining hand on her shoulder. Judging it to be safe for the time being, I continued with my story, "As a member of the Volturi Guard, they trained me and honed my tracking abilities, and I quickly became one of their most talented trackers. This is why they named me "Hunter." Rather than hunting humans, I was sent to hunt and kill vampires who had offended the Volturi in some way. I did everything the Volturi asked of me, out of subservience and gratitude for being given a life.

"For eighty years, I tracked and killed for the Volturi, doing anything asked. But throughout those eighty years, I never truly fit in with them. For you see, I still refused to drink human blood. You may have noticed that my eyes are also golden-colored, because I only prey upon animals. In only the most extreme of circumstances will I drink from a human. The rest of the guard had difficulty understanding this choice, but accepted it. However, since I heard of your family, I have been thinking of coming to see you; to see others who choose the same lifestyle as myself.

"Finally, I could not stand to be among the Volturi any longer with their complete disregard for human life and informed them that I would be leaving the guard in order to seek you out. Once I had decided this, I shortly after left Volterra and started my journey to Forks."

Finished I looked around at the pale faces surrounding me, half expecting to be kicked out of the house immediately for having the nerve to step foot in their house. The other half of me expected to be killed on the spot.

Instead, Carlisle simply said, "That is an interesting story, my friend. We are of course happy to welcome you into our family."

And this was how I came to live with the Cullens.


	4. Part I: Chapter 3

_Thanks for the reviews - it really makes me want to keep up the story! (and update it often...) Hope you enjoy!_

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Chapter 3

I spent the remainder of my first evening with the Cullens upstairs in Carlisle's study, continuing to talk about my past. Despite my promise to myself to be honest with them, I avoided the subject of what I did for the Volturi as much as possible; Carlisle noticed this and respected my silence. Carlisle told me the story of the Cullen clan and how they came into being. I heard about how he was turned and how he turned Edward, Esme and then Rosalie, all on their deathbeds. And then how Emmett, found dying in the woods by Rosalie, was turned. When he told me how Alice and Jasper had come together and found them, I could not help but ask, "But how did he come across those battle scars? What was Jasper before he joined you?"

"That is Jasper's story to tell. But he has had a hard life," Carlisle responded in a sad voice. I should have guessed he would respond like that.

Obviously, I could guess that how he had gotten the scars. But I wanted to make sure that it had not been the Volturi, as that would likely end up causing problems between us. Because, honestly, Jasper looked very much like the survivor of an attack on a coven by the Volturi. Well, at least I think that is what a survivor would look like if we had ever left any.

"But, tell me," Carlisle continued, "you say you have never enjoyed drinking human blood. How did you come to adopt this lifestyle? The Volturi are not exactly known for vegetarianism."

"It is what seemed natural to me," I replied, honestly. "I have an extreme revulsion for human blood. When I say that I mean that of course I am still drawn to the scent of it, which is why I spent so many years hunting humans for sport. But the idea of actually drinking the blood, and the taste itself, is repulsive to me, so from the day I was born I have been living on the blood of animals. For a while when I first joined the Volturi, they forced me to drink human blood," I shuddered involuntarily in disgust at the memory, "because they believed that it was simply due to denying my nature. However, before long, when they could see that I found the taste to be atrocious, they accepted that it was due to a quirk in my nature and allowed me to hunt for my meals myself.

"When I heard that there was an entire coven of vampires like me, I did not believe it. I thought that the stories were either exaggerated or a complete lie. But when the Volturi, ah, came to your home last year, I was able to see for myself that it was an entire family with the golden eyes that are the tell-tale of this lifestyle. It was at that time that I began to think about leaving the Volturi and coming to this coven."

"How interesting. A vampire revolted by blood," Carlisle murmured. To me, he said, "You must understand the fascination of this. Even we, who freely choose to live off of animals, are still drawn to the blood of humans. We resist only out of extraordinary control. Whether the idea revolts us or not, the blood itself still draws us. It is amazing that there exists a creature to whom this blood does not call."

"My turn!" came a trilling voice, accompanied by the loud crash of doors.

Carlisle and I both turned to the small woman who had just entered the room, in the biggest way she could imagine.

"It is most definitely my turn to spend time with my brother," Alice proclaimed imperiously, looking and sounding much like a child attempting to order around her parents.

Carlisle turned to me and, laughing, said, "Good luck."

*******

Over the course of the next few days, I became more comfortable in the Cullen house. Carlisle and I continued to have deep conversations late into the night, him trying to glean all he could about my nature. To me, it was a relief to share my thoughts with someone, as in the guard, my diet had always been a matter that we preferred not to discuss.

I found the rest of the family to be charming. It took Edward a while to warm up to me, as he did not entirely trust me, but it took me a while to warm up to him as well, since I was not used to having my every thought known to another being. Bella, on the other hand, after her initial hostility, was always kind to me and their daughter was playful and enjoyable to be around. Esme was gentle and warm, Emmett was humorous and fun and Alice was always overexcited. Jasper seemed slightly suspicious of me still (Alice continually reassured me that he and I would be friends soon) and Rosalie seemed indifferent (Emmett informed me that this was typical for Rosalie and that I would get used to it), but even these reactions were infinitely better than what I had been expecting.

It was a typical day in the Cullen house; I was sitting in the living room watching television with Alice and Jasper. Well, to be honest, I was not paying any attention to the television, so much as staring out the window. Edward was playing piano with Bella by his side and Rosalie was upstairs playing with Renessme, when an extraordinarily tall, muscular Native American man came bursting through the door. This young man was most definitely not a vampire, but he smelled horrible to be a human.

"Hey, everyone," he said, pausing by the piano giving Bella a quick peck on the cheek. "Ugh, you smell like a leech," he laughed, ignoring the dirty look that Bella threw at him. He glanced quickly around the room, seeming to be searching for someone, when his eyes landed on me. His eyes instantly narrowed and his muscles rippled; in automatic response, I tensed for attack. "Who's the new bloodsucker?"

"Calm down, Jacob," Bella commanded. "He's a new addition to the family. His name is Hunter." This did not seem to do much to calm him down.

At this point Alice piped up, "I can't see what you're going to do, Jacob, but Hunter is going to be my favorite brother and I swear if you attack him, I will be _very_ put out."

"Seriously, Jake. He's not a danger, calm down," Bella said, putting a restraining hand on his shoulder. He seemed to visibly calm, but I kept my guard up just in case. When he had calmed considerably, Bella turned to me and said, "Hunter, this is our friend Jake."

"Nice to meet you," I said, tersely.

"I'd say the same, if it was ever nice to have a new bloodsucker around," he responded. "Where's Nessie?"

"She's upstairs, with Rosalie," Bella responded and Jacob, with one last hostile glance in my direction, bounded up the stairs. "I'm sorry about that, Hunter. It was nothing against you. Jacob is just a little overprotective of Rensessme."

"Really, Jacob's never been the best with manners," Edward chimed in. "Unfortunately we're kind of stuck with the mangy mutt."

"It's a long story," Bella explained.

"Hunting! Who's coming?" Emmett bellowed, suddenly running in the door. "There's been bear attacks recently and I wanna find the suckers! Ugh, it smells like dog in here!"

"I heard that" a voice shouted from upstairs.

"Well, maybe you should learn to shower before you show up!" Emmett yelled back, playfully. "But, seriously, guys. Who's with me?"

Edward, Alice and Jasper all rose to go. Alice turned to me, "You should come with us, Hunter. You look like you're starving."

It was true. I had not hunted since arriving at the Cullen house and my eyes were a very betraying coal black. Anyway, I thought it better to not be around this Jacob who apparently hated me; the way the Cullens' interacted with him told me that they would not be pleased if I killed him. Even if he attacked me first. And so, I stood and said, "Alright, then. Where to?"

*******

It was a short trip to the place that Emmett had in mind for hunting; well, it was a short trip to five vampires, at least. As we slowed our pace, I caught wind of a herd of deer. Shortly after, the others smelled them as well.

"Appetizer?" Jasper asked, raising an eyebrow. Alice grinned wickedly in return and the rest of us slowed our approach, in order to not frighten off our prey. Following the scent in the wind, we stalked closer to the herd, until they were within sight. The group split off, putting some distance between us. At seemingly the same moment, we all pounced, each of us taking down one of the deer and feeding.

Afterwards, Emmett commented, "That was good and all, but I can't wait until we find the bears."

"We're hunting more?" I asked, unable to stop myself.

All four of the Cullens looked at me in surprise. "Well, yes, silly," Alice replied. "Why wouldn't we? A little dear isn't enough to fill you up."

"How much do you usually eat?" Edward ventured, having, I assumed, read my thoughts about how a 'little dear' was a typical meal for me.

"An ibex or goat or deer – maybe two – every couple days," I responded, remember how I would purposely force myself to go hungry.

"You _made_ yourself go hungry?" Edward asked. "But why?"

"My eyes. I fit in better with the guard when my eyes were darker. The gold color emphasized the difference between us; I was treated with more respect when they were darker."

"Wait, you were constantly starving in a city filled with humans?" Jasper asked, incredulously. "How did you stand it? Even if you thought the blood was gross, you'd be hungry enough that you wouldn't care."

"I guess I just got used to the thirst," I stammered.

"Don't worry, Hunter," Alice said, putting her arm around me. "You're a part of our family now. Now you can actually be full and hunt like a Cullen." At the last part she grinned mischievously and said, "I think I smell grizzly."

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	5. Part I: Chapter 4

_Thanks for all the reviews and encouragement - I love it!_ :)

_Not a lot of plot development in this chapter, but I really like this one. (And the next couple chapters will have more than enough plot to make up for it - promise!) Let me know what you think!_

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Chapter 4

And so life with the Cullens went on. In a matter of days, they had accepted me completely and irrevocably into their family. Carlisle decided against having me attend Forks High School like the others had, deciding instead to have the people of Forks not know of my existence, which was relatively easy as the Cullens lived far out of town and mostly kept to themselves. Bella's father, Charlie, came to visit on occasion to see his granddaughter, but barely took notice of my presence. He seemed determined to not notice anything strange about the Cullen family and interestingly pale new arrivals definitely counted in the category of strange.

Not being in school worked just fine for me, as I had never had any form of formal schooling in my life. Well, at least I think I have not. I cannot really say, as I do not remember anything before I became a vampire, but I do know that I have not gone through any schooling since then, as is evidenced in my poor reading level. However, having found this out, the Cullens took to tutoring me themselves so I would not be behind in school when we moved on to a new city. Alice took on the task of teaching me to read; Edward took music and languages; Rosalie taught me mathematics; Carlisle and Bella tutored me in the physical sciences; Jasper and Esme taught me psychology and the other social sciences; Emmett took history (which quickly became my best subject, coming easily to me since I had lived through the last century and a half of it). I would be bounced from one to the other each day until I had fulfilled all subjects and spent my evenings trying to work through everything I had learned that day.

And Alice was right. Once I learned to read, I absolutely loved it.

But it was months after I had come to live with the Cullens that I rediscovered my favorite pastime: fighting.

It was a bright, sunny day and I was sitting in the living room working my way through a novel when I noticed Emmett and Jasper in a wrestling match outside. They did this often, but today I decided to go out and watch. Although Emmett was larger and stronger than his opponent was, Jasper obviously had the superior fighting skills, since had had much more practice with it, as was plainly obviously from the white scars all over his torso, shining particularly brightly in the sunlight. The interesting thing about scars from another vampire is that they never go away; the venom from the bite gets into your skin and it will be there forever. The viciousness of the bite can also be gleaned from the scar, the fainter ones being more shallow bites and the more obvious ones being from much deeper bites.

Between Emmett's size and Jasper's skill, they were pretty evenly matched. However, before long Emmett's strength gave him the edge, allowing him to pin Jasper down and win the match.

Seeing me watching, Emmett called out, "How 'bout you, Hunter? You up for a match against the greatest vamp in history?" I hesitated for a second. "Come on, it's just a playful, friendly match. I'll go easy on you!" he laughed.

"How do you mean playful?"

"Well, you know, man, for fun," Emmett said, he tone conveying that he thought I was either crazy or a complete idiot.

"I just wanted to check. Playful fighting in the Volturi Guard usually left scars."

His eyebrows rose. "Yeah, a little more playful than that."

"I think I can manage that," I responded. Following the suit of the previous fighters, I took off my shirt and moved closer to where Emmett was standing.

In the sunlight, the scars that littered my own torso shone brightly against my pale skin. Jasper's eyes narrowed as he inspected the scars, looking much like he was mentally sizing up the number of fights I had to have been in to receive the number of scars I had. Emmett gave a low whistle. "Tell me you got those from play fighting."

"No, I typically was not the one getting the scars, just the one leaving them."

Emmett laughed at my challenge and said "Alright, little bro. I hope you're ready for this." He lunged towards me, but I easily jumped out of the way. Much as I had guessed from watching him fight Jasper, Emmett's edge came from his size and strength, rather than from any real fighting skill. However, that size and strength was considerable. Nevertheless, it did not take me long to pin him down to the ground.

"Wow," I said, standing up. "That was a lot easier than fighting Jane; I could actually think."

Despite his grumbling about losing, Emmett could not help but laugh at my comment about the difficulty of fighting sweet little Jane of the Volturi Guard. Although she was slight, she had the ability to cause excruciating pain with just a thought, seriously incapacitating her opponent; Jane was not above using this ability even in a play fight.

"What about a real fight?"

I turned quickly and looked at Jasper.

"Not real as in killing each other. But a _real_ fight for fun, you know."

I considered for a second. Jasper was a skillful fighter and would make a formidable opponent. But I hesitated, not knowing how vicious a fight he was looking for. "Alright," I responded. I would go easy on him, however, until I knew how tough a fight he was willing to weather.

Each of us taking a fighting stance, Jasper and I began to circle one another. Dimly, I was aware of the others coming out of the house; Emmett must have told them about the fight. I waited, ready to attack, for Jasper to make the first move. Suddenly I heard a gasp come from the porch; in my second of distraction Jasper made his move. He lunged forward, catching me on the upper arm with his teeth. All thoughts of going easy on him fled in that instant. In reaction, I shoved my elbow back as hard as I could into his chest, knocking him backwards. I took advantage of the moment it took him to regain his balance, gong for his throat. He moved just in time so that my teeth instead sunk into his shoulder. He growled and threw a punch at the side of my face, which I blocked with my left arm, returning it with a punch of my own with my right.

However, as I was doing this he managed to grab hold of the arm that I had blocked the punch with and sunk his teeth into my right forearm. Barely noticing the burn of the venom, I jerked my knee up, catching him in the chin and knocking his head backwards. I then tore into the tender flesh of the arm that still held onto my arm. He roared in painful anger and smacked my head away from his arm, following it with a kick to my ribs, knocking me backward a few steps. I let him believe that I was more vulnerable that I really was, leaning over as though I was hurt. As he moved forward to attack again, I lunged forward and caught the side of his abdomen in my teeth.

I do not know how long the fight went on for, but I do know that it was the best fight I had been in for a long time. Certainly the best fight I had ever fought against a single opponent. We continued tearing into each other's flesh with our teeth, the burn of the foreign venom barely registering in my consciousness. I knew it would hurt like hell later, but the only thing that mattered to me now was Jasper's next move and how I would retaliate.

I had him from behind, biting into the back of this shoulder when he caught me hard in the chest with an elbow. He quickly turned and grabbed hold of me by the neck, in a grip so tight it would have choked me had I needed to breathe. I wrestled with him in this position until I had his head in my hands. And there we stood, each of us with our teeth at the other's throat, neither of us moving a muscle.

"Well, brother, it seems we are at an impasse," Jasper said with a smile and released me.

I stepped gingerly back, wincing at the burning from the tear in my calf. At that moment, the searing pain from all of the other tears in my flesh hit me. Looking at Jasper, I saw that he was also in pain from the bites I had managed to get at him.

"Put some venom on them," I said, still somewhat tense from the fight. "It will neutralize the venom in it and stop the burn."

"Thanks," he said. "Good fight."

"You too," I responded. "We should do it again sometime."

He smiled broadly. "Definitely."


	6. Part I: Chapter 5

_Thanks for all the reviews and encouragement to continue! I love it!_

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Chapter 5

I had to admit, the little sprite had been right about me and Jasper being friends. In the course of a single fight, we were suddenly fast friends. I provided him with a needed fighting outlet with whom he could fight without fear of actually hurting, the way he feared hurting any of his family. In turn, he gave back to me the companionship I had left when I left the Volturi Guard. We began fighting like this on a regular basis, both pleased with the knowledge that we still had the ability to fight well against another vampire. Naturally, our viciousness worried Esme, but she could see how much we were enjoying ourselves and her joy at our happiness overrode her concern.

Unfortunately, we could not stay in Forks forever. It was two years after I had joined the Cullen clan and nearly seven years after the Cullens had first moved there. Although the good people of Forks, WA rarely saw and of the Cullen children and thus could not exclaim over their lack of aging, after having spent seven years working at the hospital, Carlisle's lack of aging was beginning to draw attention; a supposedly 30-year-old doctor who still looks the same youthful 23 that he did when he first came to the hospital warrants some speculation. With this knowledge in mind, we sat down one evening to the dining room table to plan out the move.

The dining room table was obviously never used to consume meals, but it came in handy when we needed a place to convene as a group. Carlisle always sat at the head of the table, with Esme by his side. The rest of the Cullens paired off around the table. I squeezed in between Jasper and Bella. Nessie, much more interested in the small bug she had found crawling along the floor, ignored her seat entirely.

"I have found the perfect new place to move," Carlisle announced. "South Praire, North Dakota. It's a small town," – although it would be easier to blend into a large city, the Cullens tried to find small towns, as the smaller amount of people equaled less temptation – "with relatively cloudy winters and the hospital in the nearby city of Minot is looking for a new ER Doctor."

"We have to start high school, _again_?" Rosalie asked, sounding enormously irritated.

"Rose," Carlise said gently, "you know that the younger you start the longer we can stay in a place. Obviously we'll be having Hunter start as a freshmen, since he has not been to high school yet, but, as usual, the rest of you will be able to choose your own grades and relationships to each other."

"Oooh, oooh! I'll be a freshmen with Hunter! We could almost be twins!" Alice called out, excitedly, waving her hand in the air, looking much like I would imagine a high school freshmen might when the know the answer to a question in class. I wasn't so sure how easily we could pass as twins, being that I was 6'4" as compared to Alice's petite 4'10", but I suppose the humans would see us as being relatively similar simply due to our pale, vampiric features and dark hair.

"Ugh, I'll take junior," Rosalie said, sounding less than excited about the prospect.

"I'll be a junior too," Emmett said, rather more enthusiastically than Rosalie. "Can we play sports this time?" Carlisle gave Emmett an exasperated look that made me think that this was an oft asked question. "Okay, okay," Emmett responded, "no sports. Got it."

"I'll be a sophomore," Jasper said. "We can call me Rose's brother, as usual."

"Very good," Carlisle said. "Edward, Bella, how about the two of you?"

"Well," Edward began, "we were actually thinking that we would instead go to college. Bella hasn't been to college yet and obviously she has the self-control to manage it, so I think it would be safe for her to be there."

"Anyway, we kind of want to stay around here so Charlie can see Renessme as she grows up. By time we're done with college she'll be fully grown," Bella added. The child did grow quickly; in the two years I had been with the Cullens, Renessme had aged about 5 full years.

Carlisle nodded. "Of course. Jasper, if you could kindly get us new IDs and transcripts?" Jasper nodded. "Alice, get all of you enrolled into school. Emmett and Rosalie, start looking for good hunting grounds around Minot. And Esme will find us a house."

With the plans set, we left the table to set them into motion.

********

The house was packed, Esme had found us a house out in the countryside by South Prairie, North Dakota and Jasper had gotten us new IDs and transcripts to enroll in school. Jasper apparently had a contact in Seattle that took care of forging these documents for the Cullens; I do not know whether it was through money or intimidation, but the man did not ask questions.

"Rosalie Afton!" Jasper called out holding up an envelope.

"Ugh," Rosalie complained. "Afton? That's the best name we could get?"

"Oh, come off it, Rose. You know we can't have the same names everywhere we go. Mary Alice Kincaid!"

Alice danced forward and gracefully grabbed her envelope from Jasper's hand.

"Hunter Kincaid!"

I reached forward and accepted my envelope.

"Emmett Devinshire!"

"Ooh, nice one," Emmett said, snatching his envelope.

"Carlisle Devinshire!"

Carlisle nodded his thanks and took his envelope from Jasper's hand.

"And Emse Devinshire," Jasper finished, handing Esme her envelope.

Opening my envelope, I found a North Dakota state ID card, transcripts from an elementary and middle school in Kansas, as well as a birth certificate and social security card claiming me to be Hunter Kincaid. There was also a Washington Driver's License with the name Hunter Cullen on it. Seeing me looking at it curiously, Jasper explained, "Just in case you ever get pulled over while driving. Since you're a freshmen, you wouldn't be old enough to have a license yet."

"And I have school handbooks for all of you," Alice proclaimed, smiling. Suddenly, Edward burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

"Sure wish we could be in on the joke," Emmett muttered.

Between fits of laughter, Edward managed to choke out, "Oh, you will be."

Shooting Edward a dirty look, Alice began handing out the student handbooks for our new school.

"You have got to be kidding me," Rosalie said the second she got hers. "Bishop Ryan _Catholic_ High School? We are not going to school there."

"I don't know, babe, I think I could deal with seeing you in a Catholic school girl uniform every day," Emmett said, with a lewd smile. Rosalie shot him a disgusted look and turned back to her student handbook.

"You're sending a group of five vampires to Catholic School?" Bella asked in disbelief.

"Minot High was full," Alice shrugged, apologetically.

"Well, I'm sure we'll make do," Carlisle said, graciously. However, he did not do a very good job of hiding his laughter.

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_I hope you like the little plot twist at the end there...I'm still not quite sure how exactly that's going to play into the story, but you know it's going to make it interesting! Let me know what you think! The reviews really make me want to continue with the story!  
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	7. Part I: Chapter 6

_Thanks so much for the reviews - I love to hear what you think about the story! _

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Chapter 6

The house that Esme had found for us was an old-style farmhouse surrounded by large trees. When we arrived, she assured us that she was already drawing the plans for how she would fix it up during our time there. Being farm country, our closest neighbors were about a quarter mile away; we were about three miles from the village of South Prairie.

We drove only the U-haul truck in during the day, since the Cullens had a soft spot for ostentatious cars that would draw a little to much attention in this area. I could not blame them though, I also felt the exhilaration of driving recklessly fast. Edward's Volvo would be staying in Washington with Edward and Bella, so we had to choose a new car for school purposes, deciding that Rosalie's M3 and Emmett's Jeep would kind of stick out in the parking lot. And if they would stick out, Alice's yellow Porche would be hopelessly noticeable. For their anniversary, Alice had gotten Jasper an indigo blue Jaguar XF that he fell in love with; it was impressive that a Jaguar was the most nondescript car the Cullens owned. Eventually, we settled on a BMW 750li Sedan – still ostentatious, but much less so than the others. However, no matter how noticeable, there was no talking Carlisle out of his car. When told that his black Mercedes may also stick out, Carlisle would simply reply, "I'm a doctor. I have the money for a car like this."

My room had a lovely view of the small garden in the backyard. Apparently Esme had decided that she wanted to take up gardening, despite the fact that none of us would touch the food grown in it. The room itself was unremarkable, but Esme had told me about her plans for redoing my room. It was to be completely black, with a mural of Volterra on one wall. I had told Esme one day about how, although I did not miss the Volturi, I did miss the beautiful city that they presided over, and so, she decided to bring the city to me.

None of us needing sleep, we worked through the night, managing to unpack completely in the space of a single night. We mostly kept to ourselves for the next week until school started, as the Cullens typically did; only Carlisle going out into public to go to the hospital. The night before school, we went on a hunting trip, so as to relieve most of the temptation when we arrived at school, surrounding by teenaged humans.

*******

"Oh, you must be Dr. Devinshire's children!" the main office secretary at Bishop Ryan Catholic High School, squealed happily. She was a small lady with mousy brown hair and thick-rimmed glasses. Her blood smelled good. "I'm Ms. Kohl, it's so wonderful to have you all here! Let me just find your schedules…I know they're somewhere around here." Ms. Kohl started rifling through papers on the reception desk.

"What, no habit?" Rosalie hissed, so quietly that only a vampire could hear. "Alice, you have seriously got to be joking."

"Oh, have an open mind, Rose," Alice hissed back. "Maybe it will be a lot of fun!"

"Here they are, dears. I have Rosalie and Jasper Afton," she said, holding out two of the schedules, which Rosalie and Jasper stepped forward to take. "And Emmett Devinshire?" Emmett stepped forward for his. "And you two must be Alice and Hunter Kincaid," she smiled, handing the final to schedules to Alice and I.

"Thank you!" Alice sang, as the retreated from the office to go outside and compare schedules.

"I have a religion class," Rosalie complained, thoroughly annoyed.

"C'mon, Rose. It won't be that bad – we have it together," Emmett said, cheerfully.

"We all have religion classes," Alice said, as though explaining it to a child. "They're required here. It is a Catholic school after all. What do you have, Hunter?"

"Algebra, Freshman English, Phys. Ed., Biology, Lunch, US History, Religion and French 1. Ugh, I hate French," I said, listing off my classes. Although I had gone through very little schooling other than what the Cullens had taught me, I could speak close to 15 different languages fluently. I had no clue why, but I really hated French. _You do too know_, I found me chastising myself.

About little over 80 years ago, when I was still hunting humans for sport, I had been hunting a French noblewoman and had just found her, walking through the streets after dark, when a large mob had descended upon me. I easily could have killed them all and escaped, but I was on the run from the Volturi at the time and had not wanted too call too much attention to myself. There had been no way to escape without revealing myself as not human, so they arrested me. Somehow the Volturi had convinced them to release me to them rather than have me put on trial in France. And so, the French authorities gave me up to the Volturi. Although I had been back to France since then and liked the country perfectly fine, I had never really forgiven them for giving me up to the Volturi.

"Ooh, we have gym together," Jasper said, checking my schedule against his own. "That should be fun."

"I have Algebra, English, History and Religion with you," Alice said. "Are you excited? It is your first day of high school, after all!"

"Technically," I said, "it is your first day as well."

"Yeah, well, it's like my tenth first day. That's different," she replied, knowingly. "Come on, we're going to be late for mass."

*******

I uncomfortably fussed with the yellow and purple striped tie that was a part of my new school uniform and shifted in my seat. I did not need to move around, of course, since stillness came completely naturally to me. However, it helped with the appearance of being human throughout the dragging mass. Most of the students around us were fidgeting n their seats or having whispering conversations to one another. I saw a number of heads turning in our direction as well, quickly turning away when one of us would catch their eye.

A small, blonde girl next to me handed me a tray of little cups of grape juice.

"Thank you," I said automatically, although I had no idea why it was being handed to me, and the girl gave a high-pitched giggle and looked at the floor. I quickly glanced down the row and saw that everyone had taken a little cup. There was also a basket of small crackers coming down the row. I shrugged to myself and took one of the cups, passing the tray on to Jasper.

I started paying attention to the priest to find out what was going on. He was saying something about the body and blood of Christ. Ah, Communion.

When it came time to drink our juice and eat our crackers, Jasper was staring at his juice in disgust. He had already pocketed his cracker; I stealthily did the same. Being able to think of nothing to get rid of the juice other than drinking it, short of pouring it out on the floor, I turned to Jasper and, with a sardonic smile, said, "Well, it is supposed to represent blood, right?"

With that, I tossed back the juice.

Jasper grinned back at me. "You're horrible," he replied and swallowed his own juice.

*******

The day went by slowly – in trying to catch me up to a high school education, the Cullens had managed to bring me up to the level of a college education. One part of me was thankful for this, as it would greatly decrease how much I would have to pay attention, but another part of me wished they had not so I would not be so bored right now.

For a while in Algebra, Alice and I had played "tic-tac-toe," but I gave up on that quickly. Every time I made my first move, Alice would scribble the winner over the game and draw out a new board. Alice almost always won; there were two times when it was a tie. I now understood why everyone refused to play games with Alice: it was ridiculously frustrating. I believe I may enjoy English, however, since we were reading books that I had not read yet. Well, there were a few books that I had not gotten to yet, but I had not read the others in a while. However, even though it had been two years, my perfect vampiric memory had no trouble recalling every minute detail.

Phys. Ed. was by far my favorite though. As soon as we had entered to gymnasium, the phys. ed. teacher, Coach Moore, announced that we would be doing wrestling this quarter. He had us pair up to do an initial sparring match so he could assess everyone's skill level; naturally, I partnered up with Jasper. Perhaps we were a _little_ rough in our wrestling, flipping each other onto the mat hard enough to have broken bones in anyone but a vampire. For a moment, I was worried that we got too carried away and had exposed ourselves, but Coach Moore, after watching our viciousness for a moment, simply shook his head and muttered to himself, "Maybe it isn't such a good idea to let brothers pair up…I need to remember that in the future." However, he let Jasper and I stay as sparring partners.

The little blond girl who had sat next to me in mass ended up being my lab partner in biology. Another girl stood at the end of our lab table, talking to her. My lab partner and the girl spent the entire first minute that we were in class looking over at me and giggling; overall, it was incredibly annoying and made me feel a little, well, _self-conscious_. I nervously ran a hand through my hair, probably messing it up more than fixing it at all. At this they giggled even more. I suppose it was not that long before she spoke to me, but to my vampire mind, it seemed to stretch out for an eternity. I really did not know how the Cullens could stand this; I was beginning to understand Rosalie's frustration at having to go through high school again, even though it was only the first day of my first time through. Mostly, I just hoped she was intelligent so that I would not have to dumb myself down too much to be at her knowledge level.

The girl next to me's blood was cloyingly sweet. If I drank human blood, I think I would like hers. I was instantly disgusted by the thought. That was the strange thing about human blood with me – I would think about how delicious it would be and completely repulsed by it at the same time. Carlisle's theory was that in my human life I had been an incredibly compassionate individual and that had carried over when I had been turned, much like what had happened to him. This was a nice thought that I would not have minded being true, but the sense of excitement I got out of tracking humans made me think otherwise. I think I just preferred to play with my food rather than eat it, much like a pertinent child when confronted with lima beans.

"I'm Kristy," my lab partner said, boldly introducing herself after her friend had gone to sit down. The teacher was taking an inordinately long time getting his lecture notes prepared; I idly wondered what was taking him so long.

"Hunter," I replied, trying to remind myself to be nice. Although I had never ascribed to the levels of cruelty towards humans that the Volturi had exhibited, in the 80 years I spent with them, I had picked up some of their disrespect of humans. Overall, I thought them to be generally stupid and oblivious; this little girl who insisted upon introducing herself to a vampire did not do much to dispel this attitude.

"So, where are you from?" she ventured.

"Kansas," I replied, remembering the carefully crafted story we had. "Wichita."

The story was that Carlisle and Esme had been college sweethearts and when Carlisle had been partway through med school, they had adopted a foster child, Emmett. Emmett had been an orphan with unknown parents and had been taken in by Carlisle and Esme at 13, after having been bounced around through foster families for years due to aggression issues. This last part was insisted upon by Emmett; he liked the idea of people being intimidated by him, as though his size and obvious strength would not have done the trick on their own. A couple years later, Carlisle and Esme took in Alice and myself, who had been taken into custody by the state for reasons we refused to disclose to any but our family. Rosalie and Jasper were the newest additions to the family, having been taken in just last spring after the untimely death of their parents in a car accident. The grief over their parents' deaths was used to explain Jasper's quiet, detached nature, as, although he had gotten significantly better than the last time he went through high school, it was still not easy for him to adhere to the vegetarian lifestyle.

"That's neat," Kristy said. "I've lived here in North Dakota my whole life. It's always cool to get new students since most of us have gone to school together for, like, our whole lives. It's got to be weird coming to a new school, huh?"

"Not particularly."

"Oh, well, I guess you're kind of used to it, huh? You know, having moved around a lot before you were adopted." She stopped suddenly in embarrassment. Apparently, news of the Devinshire family had already spread throughout the small school. "My mom's friend works at the hospital with your dad," she explained, sheepishly.

Mercifully, the teacher got his notes together and started class before I had to respond.

*******

I did not have to look around for my family in the cafeteria – in this room full of humans, I could smell the vampires easily. I got in the cafeteria line, even though I knew I would not eat any of the food I put on my tray. The grape juice this morning had been bad enough. However, it was important for keeping up appearances as human to eat lunch. Not really knowing what food to get, I simply copied the boy in front of me, getting the same amount of everything that he got. Overall, it looked wholly unappetizing. The unidentifiable meat was not even bloody.

I put my full tray down on the table next to my siblings, who were sitting around the table, looking bored. Rose and Emmett were whispering to one another in conversation quietly enough that not even vampiric ears could hear. Although in our story Rosalie and Emmett were a couple (Rose would not budge on some things), Alice and Jasper were not, so they sat of opposite sides of the table with me in between them. It had been decided that it would be slightly suspicious if both of the Afton children were paired with their new siblings, particularly so soon after they had come to join the family. In a year or so, Alice and Jasper would make their relationship public, depending on the reaction that Rose and Emmett got, being siblings dating in a Catholic school.

"Some boys are going to come over in a minute or so and ask the boys to play basketball with them," Alice said conversationally to Jasper and me. Jasper raised an eyebrow.

"Do we play?" I asked.

"I dunno, silly," Alice laughed. "You guys haven't decided yet!"

"Are we allowed to play? Or are we not supposed to?"

"It's really up to us," Jasper explained. "There's nothing actually wrong with us interacting with humans – "

"Provided we don't kill them," Emmett interjected, turning away from his conversation.

"Well, yes. As long as they all live through the experience, there's no real reason for us not to. It's just that are typically fewer questions asked if we don't."

"So, we don't play?"

"We can play."

"I am so lost," I responded.

"We can play," Jasper went on, continuing to try to make me understand. "It's just that we shouldn't. But we could."

"I think it'd be nice to make friends in school this time," Alice piped up.

"Why would you want to be friends with humans?" Rosalie asked, scathingly.

"Well, we never really do. It was kind of nice senior year in Forks when I almost sort of had friends. I mean, they were really only my friends because they were Bella's friends, but it was a little bit nice. And, oh, think of the parties we could throw when Carlisle and Esme go out of town! And the sleepovers!"

"Alice, dear, they are people, not your personal doll collection," Jasper said, smiling.

Alice stuck her tongue out at him.

"It might not be so bad," Emmett said, seeming to turn the idea over in his mind. "Maybe by making friends with them we'll actually seem more like people and they question us less."

"This is ridiculous."

"Aw, come on, Rose. Maybe it would be a good time. They're just humans, after all."

"Here they come."

At Alice's words, we saw a group of boys making their way over to our table. The sandy-haired boy in front had a basketball in his hands. He spoke as they neared our table, "Hi. I'm Aaron. This is Jeff, Ryan, Andrew and Jon. You guys wanna play some four on four?" He held up the ball as he asked this, illustrating what he meant.

"Yeah!" Emmett said, enthusiastically.

"I'll play as long as I'm not on his team," I said, inclining my head towards Emmett. Aaron looked at me like I was crazy that I would not want Emmett on my team. I could not blame him – Emmett looked like the type of person who would not let his team lose. This was why I wanted to be on the other team; the kids may as well at least get a fighting chance. I quickly made up an excuse, "Emmett and I are pretty competitive; we never work out well on the same team."

Aaron seemed to accept this response. "Yeah, me and my little brother totally have the same problem. How 'bout you? Are you in?" he asked, turning to Jasper. Jasper hesitated for a second.

"Come on, bro," Emmett said, clapping Jasper on the shoulder as he stood hard enough to nearly knock Jasper from his chair. Alice nodded at him encouragingly.

"I guess," he responded, reluctantly rising.

"Have fun guys!" Alice called after us as we headed towards the gymnasium.

Playing with the humans had been a lot more difficult than anticipated simply because it required constant concentration in order to tone down my strength and speed so much. Naturally, Jasper and my team won, being that it had two vampires instead of just one. However, the boys did play pretty decently. For humans.

The rest of my classes dragged on much as the first half of the day did. Alice was in my next two classes; I tried my hand a "tic-tac-toe" another time (with her promising that she would try to focus on the futures of other people), but she still knew the outcome of the game by the second move, so that did not last long. Andrew from the basketball game was in my French class and spent the hour talking idly about basketball season. He was apparently on the JV basketball team and mentioned that Jasper and I should try out for it. Remembering Carlisle's response to Emmett's begging to play sports, I smiled to myself and told him that we preferred to just play for fun. I was starting to think that maybe humans were not always so bad.

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_Let me know if you like it! _

_*Note: Bishop Ryan Catholic High School _IS_ an actual school in Minot, ND. However, all the characters portrayed in association with the school are fictitious :)_


	8. Part I: Chapter 7

_Thanks for the reviews – I love to hear that you're liking the story! I hope you enjoy the next installment!_

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Chapter 7

"Have you heard the latest news about those animal attacks that have been happening outside of town," Kristy asked one October day as we were walking into biology.

Since that fateful basketball game on the first day, my siblings and I had made the effot to get to know some of the students at Bishop Ryan High School. Although I did not particularly love any of them, they were interesting enough to keep me occupied through the boring days of high school. Except for Rosalie, who preferred not to consort with them, we each had become part of our own little group. Jasper and I hung out with Aaron, Andrew and several of their friends – mostly sophomore boys with a junior and a few freshmen mixed in. Emmett had found a group of senior and junior boys, most of whom were on the football team, that he hung out with occasionally, spending the rest of his time with Rosalie to she would not be cross with him when we got home. Alice joined a large group of freshmen girls who she found to be utterly delightful. I thought they were rather boring and idiotic, doing nothing but gossip and talk about clothes and celebrities, but this, Alice claimed, was part of their charm. Kristy was a part of this group of girls.

"They say it's mountain lions."

"Really," I responded, suddenly a little more interested in the conversation. She had been babbling about something as we were walking into class, me largely ignoring her, but at the mention of the attacks, I instantly perked up. "Are they sure? It does not really seem like a mountain lion attack to me."

"What would you know about mountain lions?" she asked, skeptically. "You're from Kansas."

_What, indeed,_ I thought, laughing silently to myself and remembering last night's dinner. I had hunted down a particularly vicious male; it had been quite the fight. And that was the main point – a fight. According to Carlisle, these attacks had not been a fight at all, although they had been carefully made to look like an attack by a wild animal, the work was just a little too careful. Which is why these attacks had the Cullens on edge lately – those vicious wounds seemed to be just a little too familiar.

"Seriously, though. The news this morning said they're getting closer to town. It's getting kinda scary. I mean, there's always new about attacks," she continued, mistaking my intent expression as one of encouragement, "but never this close. And it was always hikers, who, like, went off the trail or something. But now it's city people. I mean, seriously, mountain lions, _in_ Minot? It's really scary."

"They will find out what it is soon," I replied, dismissively. "If it is mountain lions, animal control will take care of it." My careless words belied nothing of the uneasiness I was feeling underneath.

*******

"So, what are your plans for lunch today?"

I turned to Alice, slightly confused. "What are you talking about? Same thing we do every day – get some of this…_food_…and go play some basketball."

"Oh, so you _will_ be in the gym then?" she asked, innocently.

"Alice, why do want to know where I will be?"

"Oh, I already knew, I just wanted to be sure you didn't change your mind."

"And if I do?" I asked, thinking about not playing today. The guys would forgive me.

Alice's eyes glazed over a little. She then brightened up and cheerfully said, "It doesn't really matter either way."

"_What_ does not matter?" I asked, suspiciously, waiting for her to pay for her food.

"Oh, you'll see. Have fun at lunch, Hunter! Try not to get into _too_ much trouble!" she sang, dancing away to her table.

I stared after her. _What is she talking about?_ Obviously, she had seen something. It was just as obvious that she was not going to tell me what. I sat down in my usual spot at the lunch table next to Jasper, still wondering what Alice was on about, idly listening to the conversation the guys were having about the upcoming homecoming festivities. Apparently, next week was homecoming; I did not really understand what was so interesting about it – it was just another football game – but everyone seemed to make a big deal out of it.

We went to the gymnasium to play basketball as usual; I had decided that whatever Alice saw was going to happen anyway, I might as well play for a while before it did. Since Emmett had found a new group of friends, it was only Jasper and I playing, which leveled the playing field considerably as there was only one vampire on each team. It was toss up as to which team would win, depending on which of the humans was on which team since Jasper and I were pretty evenly matched in our basketball skills. Jasper's team destroyed us – they had all the actual basketball players today. By the end of the game, when nothing happened, I was beginning to think that Alice had just been messing with me earlier.

I walked out of the gym, headed to my history class when I saw Kristy, backed up against a wall with a boy that I recognized as a junior named Mike towering over her.

"Come on, baby," I heard, "My parents are gonna be out of town. We can go to the dance for a bit and then head back to my place."

"Leave me alone, Mike," Kristy said, trying to move away. Mike grabbed her arm to stop her from moving away. I groaned to myself. Chivalry demanded that I get involved.

"Let her go, Mike," I said, coming up behind him.

"Stay out of this, Hunter" he spat, yanking her back towards him as she again struggled to get away from him. Automatically, I grabbed Mike by the arm and threw him away from her towards the far wall, carefully enough that I would not break any of his bones, but enough to hurt him a little bit.

"Are you okay?" I asked Kristy, concerned. She looked like she was about to faint.

"Y-yeah," she stammered. "Thank you."

"Of course," I responded. At the same second that I heard her gasp, Mike came hurtling into me from behind. I had heard the attack coming and was ready for it, turning just enough to catch him in the face with my fist. I miscalculated a bit and accidentally broke his nose; the blood started gushing. At the same second, I noticed that Jasper had come back down the hallway with a couple of the guys, looking for me. Jon ran off to get the school nurse.

He saw the blood and a low snarl escaped his throat. I swiftly took two long strides over to him and slammed him hard up against the wall. I saw a little crack appear in the bricks behind him. "Jasper," I said, evenly, quietly enough that only he could hear, "as soon as I let you go, you need to go. Ditch class and go home. Now." Aloud I said, "Don't worry about it, bro. Everything is fine. Now get out of here before you get in trouble for fighting along with me."

I released Jasper and he immediately turned in the opposite direction and started to quickly walk away. Seconds after he disappeared, Alice came skidding around the corner. She looked at me and mouthed "Sorry" before heading out in the direction Jasper had just gone in. Then the teachers came.

First was Coach Moore, with the nurse, Ms. Conrad, right behind him. "Oh, man," he said the second he got a look at Mike. He leaned over him to get a good look at the damage. "You're going straight to the nurse's office with Ms. Conrad; we're going to have to get you to the hospital. And you," he said accusingly, turning to me, "are coming straight to the principal's office with me. You too, young lady."

Having expected this, I compliantly followed him down the hall. When we reached the office, he had Kristy and I wait outside while he told the principle, Mr. Albert, what was happening. Kristy still looked like she was going to pass out.

"Are you sure you are okay?" I asked, still worried about her.

She nodded mutely. Coach Moore came out of the office and Mr. Albert motioned her inside. Coach Moore stayed in main office, glaring at me while Kristy was in the office. Mike had been one of his starting linebackers.

Although the door was closed, with my sensitive hearing I could hear every word of what was being said inside the office. Kristy was telling him that I had 'saved' her from Mike. A little bit of an exaggeration, but it would probably help me when it came my turn to talk to Mr. Albert. When she came out she looked infinitely better. Mr. Albert motioned for me to come into the office. As Kristy walked by, she smiled at me and said, "Thank you, Hunter."

I inclined my head in response and went into the office.

"Well, Mr. Kincaid," Mr. Albert started, "it seems like we have a bit of an interesting situation on our hands. However, whether you were doing a good deed or not, fighting is still against the rules here at Bishop Ryan."

I nodded absently, mentally scanning through my memory to see if I had any history of fighting in my fabricated school records. Nothing at my school in Wichita – well one fight close to the beginning of the year, but it was minor. There it was. My school records from Missouri were peppered with fights all through 5th and 6th grade. And none of them were minor – in one I broke a kid's arm. _Ugh, I thought it was Emmett who supposedly had the aggression issues._

"We take fighting very seriously here, Mr. Kincaid, and from the sounds of it, you seriously injured Mr. Anderson. Because of that, especially with your behavior records, you are going to be suspended. But, due to the circumstances surrounding it, you will only be suspended for three days, but don't think that this means we condone your behavior in any way. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," I responded.

"Alright. I want you to wait out in the main office. I'm going to call your parents and have them come pick you up."

"Yes, sir," I said again. I returned to my seat in the main office. After about a minute, Alice and Jasper came in and went up to the secretary.

"I think Jasper needs to go home. He's pretty sick," Alice explained. Jasper did look kind of sick. Whether he was faking it or the look on his face was stemming from an overwhelming desire to drink all the humans in the office dry, I could not really tell for sure. But, I hoped that they would let him go home, as I did not really care to find out if it was the latter.

"Oh, my," Ms. Kohl, said, obviously noticing that Jasper looked ill as well. "Of course! Maybe you should go have a sit in the nurse's office, dear," she said kindly to Jasper. I heard a painful gasp at this. Thinking about the bleeding boy that was currently in the nurse's office, I decided that it was definitely the latter choice.

"I think he'll be okay sitting here," Alice said, "he's just kind of nauseous."

"Alright," Ms. Kohl responded, looking slightly skeptical. She reached for the phone, "I'll just call your parents and have them come get him."

"No need," I said spoke up from my seat right behind Alice and Jasper. "They're already on their way to get me."

She gave me a strange look, but set the phone back down. Alice walked Jasper to the chair next to me and he sat down, every muscle in his body tense. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked.

He nodded so, with one last look, she turned and headed out of the office in the direction of her class.

It was not long before Esme showed up to get us. She came in with a disproving look on her face, as though she was about to scold me when she saw Jasper, her expression quickly changing to worry.

"Sick," Jasper grunted, getting up from his chair and heading out of the office.

"I need to talk to Mr. Albert," she said, looking at me. "Go to the car and make sure your brother is okay."

I headed out of the office, chagrined that Esme was so upset with me. I knew she would forgive me once she found out why I had gotten into the fight, but in the past few years I had come to think of her as my mother, so her disappointment in me still hurt.

*******

Later that evening, we were at the house when Carlisle said, "I think we need to talk about what happened today."

"What was I supposed to do?" I asked, frustrated. "I had to help the girl!"

"Of course," Carlisle responded, soothingly. "However, it is important to be more careful about things like this. Perhaps fighting was not the best way to go about it."

"I tried talking. It did not work and he was hurting her, so I threw him off her. It is not like I meant to punch him; he came up and attacked me from behind. It was instinct. And I did not punch him nearly as hard as I could have. I really did try."

"Well, maybe it wasn't hard enough," Rosalie said, scathingly. "Considering there was enough blood that Jasper nearly gave us all away." Jasper hung his head in shame.

"It was really my fault!" Alice whined. "I knew that he was going to walk out then and help her – I just hadn't seen that Mike was going to attack Hunter or that Jasper would come up. And he didn't lose control. He left. It was all fine."

"Yeah, because Hunter stopped him. What if he hadn't gotten to Jasper in time? We would all have been exposed."

"Now, Rose, let's not bother with 'what ifs.' It did not happen and that is what matters," Carlisle said. He then turned to me, and said kindly, "I understand why you fought. But, in the future, you need to be more careful."

I nodded, silently, knowing that he was right.

"Maybe we should just stop this nonsense of being _friends_ with humans," Rosalie muttered, darkly.

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_Let me know what you thought of it! I love reviews! :)_

_p.s. if you're interested in the Cullens' latest cars, there are links to pics of them up on my profile_


	9. Part I: Chapter 8

_I know, I know…I'm being very hard on poor Hunter right now. But I promise, things will get better for him. They were kind of tough on him for fighting being that it was his first day of school (actual first day, not just the first day of a new school like for the others). _

_I decided to update this a little extra (expect more tomorrow) because there is going to be a break in updates for a while (I'm sorry…blame my parents' painfully slow dial-up) while I'm home for the holidays. I was going to put up this chapter tomorrow and stop there, but I found a much better point to pause at a few chapters in from this._

_Let me know what you think! :)_

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Chapter 8

When I returned to school the following Monday, I had managed to become hero among the girls at the school. The football team was not so pleased with me, but were willing to forgive me, largely due to Emmett's convincing and their belief in Mike's stupidity.

"Those girls are staring at me again," I hissed to Alice, during our US History class.

"Of course they are. Every girl likes a bad boy," Alice said, playfully. "And let's face it, brother, fighting qualifies you as a bad boy. And being a bad boy who fights for the honor of girls makes you a chivalrous bad boy. Most of the girls in the school are in love with you."

"Disgusting," I responded and tried to pay attention to the lecture, ignoring the girls giggling next to me.

*******

"Hunter, can I talk to you," Kristy asked, shyly, coming up behind me after French class.

"Uh, sure," I responded, stopping and turning towards her.

"Well, I was just wondering, if…well, you know homecoming is coming up, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, you see, I was wondering if you had a date to the homecoming dance." She smiled, shyly. I inwardly groaned.

In my complete disinterest about homecoming, I had completely forgotten that there was a dance at the end of the week. Of course, I had no intention of going to it, so it would not have stuck in my mind.

"Uh, no." I desperately tried to think of an excuse not to go to it. The idea of attending a high school dance with a human was completely unappealing to me. "But we might be going out of town next weekend. Plans are not quite set yet, but we were definitely thinking about leaving next weekend."

"Oh," she said, looking kind of crestfallen. "Well, Alice said you guys probably weren't going until the weekend after, so if you don't end up leaving, do you wanna go with me?"

_Damn you, Alice_. I was going give it to her good when I got to the car. I felt bad about turning her down, especially because I knew I would see her in biology every day for the rest of the year, so I finally responded with a resigned, "Uh, sure. But we might be out of town."

"Okay!" she responded, brightly, and bounded off towards the parking lot.

*******

"ALICE!" I roared as I neared the car. Alice turned towards me, beaming. "I. Am. Going. To. Kill. You."

"Oh, Hunter, don't be so negative. It's just a date to the dance! Homecoming is an important part of your college experience. And we are most certainly NOT going out of town."

"That is why you wanted me to be there the other day, right? You wanted me to help her! That way she would want to ask me to the dance!"

"Oh, she wanted to ask you anyway," Alice giggled. "Your 'heroic rescue' was just going to be enough to give her the courage to."

I was about to come back with a snappy retort when her eyes glazed over. I stopped myself, knowing that she would not hear a word I said until the vision was over.

"Oh, no," she said.

"What?" Jasper asked, concerned, immediately at her side.

"Don't be mad, Jas. Just, don't be mad."

Before Jasper could ask what she was talking about, Matthew, one of the juniors that Emmett usually hung out with, came up to our group. "Hey, Alice," he said, conversationally, completely ignoring me and Jasper. "Do you have a date for the homecoming dance next Friday?"

"Uh, no," she managed. Jasper looked livid. With the way Alice's face looked, I was pretty sure that several scenarios of Jasper killing Matthew were running through her mind right now.

"Awesome, I'll pick you up at seven then." With that, Matthew turned and headed towards his bus.

"WHAT?!"

"Jas, it's just a dance," Alice said, meekly.

"That boy is _not_ going to a dance with _my wife_!" he growled, perhaps a little more loudly than necessary. I saw a couple heads turn in our direction.

"Maybe we should take this conversation into the car," I said, tentatively.

"Good plan," Emmett agreed quickly, unlocking the car and climbing into the driver's seat.

We climbed into the back seat, me between Alice and Jasper who were not speaking. Jasper because he was mad that Alice had not said no and Alice because Jasper was mad at her when she was not given a chance to say no. No one said a word until we reached the house.

"What was I supposed to say, Jas? 'I'm sorry, I already have plans to go with my brother, who I happen to be married to.' It's not like he even gave me a chance to say no!"

"It's not like you couldn't have said no anyway."

"Jas. Please. It's really not a big deal. I'm just going to a dance with him."

"You're going to go?" he growled, incredulously.

"Well," she huffed, "I'm not so sure, because right now I can't even tell if he'll be alive tomorrow. But maybe if you made up your mind already I could tell you!"

"I can't _believe_ you!" he yelled.

"Ugh, you're impossible!" she yelled back and stormed into the house.

"I'm going for a run," Jasper said, heading off into the woods at a sprint.

*******

The next morning, Jasper had calmed down a great deal, but Alice seemed in an even worse mood than I thought possible. As hard as I tried, I could not get a word out of her about it all morning. However, at the end of English, I did notice the fingermarks dented into the metal of the leg of her desk.

"What is going on with Alice?" I asked Jasper, as we prepared to spar in phys. ed.

"She's a little upset with me," he laughed, catching me into a headlock.

"I am thoroughly confused. I thought you were the one upset with her," I said, struggling to escape his hold.

"I decided that rather than be mad with her, I'd get even," he replied, smugly, flat on his back on the mat. "Remember that cute red-headed girl who always comes to watch us play basketball?"

"Are you serious?" I asked, stunned.

"Yup," he replied, grinning, and pinned me to the ground. "Asked her in physics second period. I must say, she was thrilled."

I did not need Alice's ability to see the future to know that this was not going to end well.


	10. Part I: Chapter 9

_Thanks for the reviews - I love reading them and hearing your thoughts!_

_I hope this chapter clears up a little of the confusion over why Jasper and Alice aren't openly dating at the school (it was the perfect time for it to be brought up!)_

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Chapter 9

Alice and Jasper did not speak to one another for the entirety of lunch. In fact, they refused to speak to anyone at all, pointedly ignoring any attempts at conversation that we made with them. They refused to even look at each other. Interestingly, their extreme efforts at ignoring each other made them seem even more involved with one another than before. However, I did have enough intelligence to not comment about that.

I tried to engage Alice in conversation during history, hoping that she would be more willing to talk now that Jasper was not around. I purposely avoided the topic of both Jasper and Homecoming, instead asking her if she had done the homework last night. Her dark glare was enough to get me to stop trying.

Thus, it came very much to my surprise when Alice turned to me at the end of our religion class and conversationally said, "Can you tell my jerk of a husband that I'm getting a ride home from a friend today?

"What friend?" I asked, immediately suspicious.

"_That_, brother dear, is none of your business," she responded, gathering her books in anticipation of the bell ringing.

"You're getting a ride from Matthew," I said, accusingly.

"Hunter, I can see that you're going to take his side. I suggest you change your mind because I swear, if you do, I will beat you severely when we get home."

If it had not been for the chilling tone, I would have found it rather amusing that petite little Alice was threatening to beat me.

"Okay, okay, I am not going to take Jasper's side." Her glare turned a little bit sharper at the sound of his name. "But, you have to admit that he was kind of justified. I mean, you _are_ his wife. And you did say yes first."

"I'll see you at home," she hissed. "And, do me a favor – let Emmett know that he's really going to get it when I get home."

"What did Emmett do?" But Alice had already rushed off to her next class. I stalked off towards my French class, mulling over how horribly Jasper was going to take the news of Alice getting a ride from Matthew.

For the first time all year, I actually paid attention in French. I did not actually learn anything, of course, as it was beginning French and I was already fluent since I had lived there for years. However, it was a much needed diversion from my impending doom. I silently cursed myself for ever getting involved in a fight between a married couple. Seriously, what had I been thinking? Granted, Alice had not really given me a choice, but I should have found a way out of it.

I did my best to look as though nothing was amiss while approaching our shiny blue BMW. "What's wrong?" Jasper immediately asked. "Where's Alice?"

"Nothing is wrong," I lied, doing my best to sound convincing.

"I can feel something is wrong. You're anxious."

_Damn empath_. "No, no. Everything is fine. Alice is just getting a ride from a…friend." I hesitated too long; Jasper knew exactly who the friend was. I braced myself for the pending outburst. I saw Jasper's jaw clench and muscles automatically tighten. As he noisily drew in an unnecessary breath, I could feel the anger radiating from him. Although Jasper's talent of manipulating the feelings of others was usually helpful, when he was angry or upset, it had the unfortunate effect of making everyone around him feel the same. I could feel myself beginning to get angry for no reason.

"I'm walking home," he said carefully, his voice seeping with rage. With that, he abruptly turned and stalked away.

"So, that went well," I said, turning to Rosalie and attempting a smile. "Where is Emmett?"

"I don't want to talk about it." She got into the driver's seat and slammed the door. _It is going to be a _long_ night_. I hesitantly climbed into the passenger seat.

The silence in the car was deafeningly awkward. Apparently everyone had chosen today to have relationship troubles. This was strange since Rose and Emmett had been getting along just fine at lunch, practically ignoring Alice and Jasper's little tiff they were so engrossed in each other.

Suddenly Rosalie broke the silence, slamming her hands down on the steering wheel. "Ugh! This is completely ridiculous. I don't see what the big deal is!"

"Tell me about it," I muttered. "Could Alice and Jasper be acting any more juvenile?"

She looked at me like I was insane. "I'm not talking about Alice and Jasper. I'm talking about our stupid school."

I waited in silence, assuming she would continue. When Rosalie was frustrated, she was not one to keep it all in. Sure enough, I was right and she kept going after a few seconds.

"I mean, seriously, what is so wrong about me dating Emmett? It's not like he's my real brother! He's not even my real brother in our stupid, fake story! And what business is it of the school's anyway?"

"What happened, exactly?" I ventured, almost not even wanting to know.

"Ugh, those stupid _humans_ pulled me out of class to day. I had to go to the guidance office and _discuss_ whether is was healthy and _moral_ for me to be dating my brother. Apparently, they think it's some sort of sin or something. He's not even my freaking _brother_! And now they are going to set up a conference with Carlisle and Esme so they can have a conversation about it. How is it even their _place_?" she seethed.

Rosalie continued on her rant for the remainder of the way home. I sat in the passenger seat wishing I had not asked. Mentally, I smacked myself for getting involved in my siblings' relationships. I should have known by now that it would never lead anywhere good.

As we pulled into the driveway, Emmett emerged from the house to greet us. He held out his arms to Rosalie to catch her in a welcome home hug, but she breezed past him, still muttering, "Utterly ridiculous."

He turned to me. "Is she still on about that whole guidance office business?"

I nodded. "What are you home so early? What is going on?"

"I got sent home early for punching Matthew," Emmett cheerfully responded. "I found him at the beginning of last period and let him know that it wasn't okay to ask out my sister without asking me first. And, let's just I got my point across a little hard. So, I got a two day suspension. If I'd followed your lead and had hit him hard enough to send him to the hospital it would have been longer. I kind of wish I had. Where are Alice and Jasper, anyway?"

"Well, Alice got a ride with your latest punching bag and Jasper is a little upset about it, so he is working off some steam."

"I knew I should have sent him to the hospital. So those two are still going at it, huh?"

"Do not even get into it."

Emmett laughed. From the house we heard Rosalie start yelling. From the sounds of it, she was telling Esme about the school's opinion on her relationship. Emmett laughed even harder. "That's Rose for you – never lets things go."

His laughter died as an unfamiliar car drove up to the house. Alice bounced out of the passenger seat. "Thanks, Matt! See you tomorrow!"

Matthew waved back at her with a huge grin on his face. That grin died immediately when he saw the glare that Emmett was giving him. He quickly threw the car into reverse and backed out of the driveway.

"You!" Alice said, rounding on Emmett, all trace of pleasantness gone from her voice. "You are in _big_ trouble."

At the same time, Rosalie emerged from the house, headed in Emmett's direction. "And, you! What were you _thinking_?!"

Emmett looked between the two of them, as if trying to decide which he would rather deal with.

"Come on, bro," he said, grabbing my arm and taking off at a run for the garage. As he threw open the door to his Jeep, he said, "Best if you come with me. Otherwise they'll find something to start in on you about."

Realizing the wisdom in his words, I quickly jumped into the passenger seat as Emmett began pulling out of the garage.

*******

"Do you think it's safe?" Emmett asked. We were still sitting in his jeep, having just pulled into the garage.

"We do not really have much choice now – they will have heard us get back so they know we are here," I responded, gravely. I did not relish the idea of walking into the house. Even though no one was specifically mad at me, anger among a family of vampires with short tempers usually got generalized to everyone in the vicinity. It certainly would not help if Jasper was home, since he would be sending off waves of anger that would put everyone more on edge. "On a positive note, Carlisle should be home by now, so that should put a damper on anyone trying to kill each other."

Emmett nodded and we climbed out of the car, heading into the house. I could feel the tension the second we entered; apparently, nothing had been resolved in our absence.

"There you are! You and I need to talk!"

"Come on now, Alice," Emmett said, holding up his hands. "It needed to be done."

"Ugh! Why are you all taking _Jasper's_ side? This is so unfair!"

"Oh, I'm not taking sides," corrected Emmett quickly. "I mean, I do think Jasper is kind of justified, but I would have punched the kid whether you said yes or not."

"Seriously, Emmett," Carlisle spoke up, coming towards us, "fighting? Hunter just got off of suspension and now you are getting into fights? What happened to trying to keep a low profile in the towns we live in?"

"Carlisle, it was completely necessary. It is an unspoken rule among high school boys that if you ask out a friend's little sister without asking his permission, you will get your butt kicked. It would have been a violation of code if I hadn't punched him for it. I was just trying to fit in with the culture."

Carlisle gave him a disbelieving look.

"Seriously, everyone knows it. I betcha he won't even be mad at me when I get back to school on Friday. He knows he deserved it."

"But you punched my date!" Alice cried out, indignantly.

"He's lucky that's all he got," Jasper spoke up. I could still feel the tension radiating from him from anger hidden just below the surface. Involuntarily, my muscles tensed up as well.

"Don't you even try that!" Alice said angrily, turning on Jasper. "Considering _you_ asked out that little tramp who's always drooling over you during your basketball games, you have no right to be mad at _me_!"

"Well, my _wife_ was already going with someone else!"

"Ugh! Carlisle, can you _please_ tell him to stop being so _childish_?"

"Oh, no," Carlisle responded. "This is a fight between the two of you; I am staying firmly out of it. But there will be no more fighting in school over this nonsense – 'justified' or not." At the last part, he looked pointedly at Emmett, who just shrugged.

"She does have a point, Jasper. It was pretty childish of you." Jasper turned to glare at Rosalie. "I mean, seriously, she's just going to the dance with him."

"But she's my wife! Don't even try to tell me you wouldn't be angry if Emmett went to the dance with another girl."

"That is completely different," Rosalie argued.

"How?"

Rosalie just glared at him in response and switched the subject. "On the topic of me and Emmett, I am not going to this school anymore."

"Rose," Carlisle said, "you are not quitting school just because they told you that you should not date Emmett."

"Yes I am! Carlisle, they told me I'm living in sin and that my relationship was immoral! I swear they think I'm going to hell because of it!"

"Rose, sweetheart, you can't die, so what does it matter?" Emmett asked.

"Honey," she responded sharply, "this is our relationship we're talking about here. Maybe you should care a little bit more."

"Why should we care what they think? So what if we're the talk of the town – we always are, baby."

"Ugh! I swear you don't care about anything! Why do I even like you?" With that, Rosalie stormed upstairs.

"Boys are so _stupid_!" Alice seconded, as she stomped loudly after her.

"This is ridiculous," Jasper seethed, storming out the front door. Emmett followed afterward with nothing but a loud slam of the door.

"What is wrong with kids these days?" Carlisle asked, and stalked towards his study.

_The whole damn family has gone insane._ I looked around the empty room and decided to go for a run in hopes I would find a mountain lion to work off some of the involuntary tension that still persisted even now that Jasper had left.


	11. Part I: Chapter 10

_So, this is my last update for a while since I'm headed home for the holidays in the wee hours of the morning. And, sadly, due to my parents' dial-up, I'm not going to update while I'm there. _

_But, no fear – I'm sure I'll have plenty to update with as soon as I get back! :)_

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Chapter 10

I was moving swiftly through the woods, in search of good prey for the evening. From my luck so far, it seemed that my chances of mountain lion were slim tonight. I paused for a moment and inhaled deeply. But the scent that I caught was not an animal. Nor was it human.

I automatically dropped down into a crouch. I listened intently, but heard nothing except the sound of small insects crawling along the ground and the wind rustling through the trees. I inhaled again, this time to gauge how far away the presence was. After determining that it was heading away from me, I silently moved backward a few dozen yards and set off at a run back towards the house.

Although I had only been about a half hour run away, it took me nearly three hours to get back to the house since I often doubled back or purposely took a wrong turn to throw the unfamiliar presence off the scent if it tried to come after me. One of these excursions had taken me all the way over into Montana. It was nearing midnight when I got back, but vampires did not need sleep, so the Cullens would still be up. However, as I neared the house, I noticed that it was dark.

I checked the garage first. Both Jasper's Jaguar and Emmett's Jeep were still gone, as was Carlisle's Mercedes. I could not hear a sound coming from the house. I moved swiftly through the living room and towards Carlisle's study. I could see a dim light shining through the crack under the door and felt a glimmer of hope, even though my acute sense of smell told me that no one was in the house. Sure enough, when I opened the door, I found the room empty; however, a lamp had been left on and a book lay open on the desk with the chair pushed back haphazardly, as if he had vacated his seat in a hurry. I breezed quickly through the upstairs rooms, still finding no one.

I returned to the entry room by the front door, where I decided to wait for the Cullens to return. I did not turn on any lights – I did not need them anyway – just in case it was not a Cullen who returned. I stood completely still in the shadows in the doorway from the foyer into the living room, watching the door with all of my senses alert.

*******

I had been standing there for hours before I heard a rustle from outside. I let out a low growl and automatically dropped into a fighting stance, feeling every muscle in my body tense for attack.

I listened intently. The rustle was still relatively far away, back near the woods, but it was steadily moving closer at a pace that was just a bit too quick to be a human. The steadiness of the approach led me to believe that it was one of the Cullens, but I did not relax, as I had no intention of taking any chances.

I could hear them approach the steps and come up onto the porch. I could hear the power behind the lightness of the step; it was obviously a vampire. I cursed the closed door for stopping the airflow that would allow me to use my acute sense of smell to determine whether the approaching presence was friend or foe. As I heard their hand touch the doorknob, I readied for attack.

The second the door opened, it allowed a gust of wind to travel into the house. It was Esme.

She automatically turned on the light as she entered and started when she saw me, crouched and ready to spring. I straightened immediately.

"Thank God it is you," I said, a smile coming to my lips. However, the smile did not reach my eyes, belying my anxiety. "Where is everyone?"

"Hunter, you scared me for a moment there."

"I am sorry," I replied, truly feeling bad. "I was not sure that it was you until you opened the door. But the others, where are they?"

"I honestly do not know," she said, her worry coming out in her voice. She could tell by my demeanor that something was wrong. "Jasper and Emmett haven't returned since they stormed out earlier. And Rosalie and Alice went to hunt. I was just out looking for them; there has been another attack and I wanted them to come back in for the evening since I was worried. Carlisle is at the hospital caring for the victim."

"Did you not find them?"

"No. I checked all the usual hunting grounds, but there was no trace of them. It's not like Rose and Alice to venture so far out. Rose usually likes to stay close to hunt," she said, concerned.

My own unease was mounting. "You should not have gone out alone, Esme. It is not safe. I was out hunting earlier and I came across another vampire. It was about a half hour away from here. I made several detours on my way back so he would not easily be led back here."

"We need to get ahold of the others. Rose and Alice may be in danger," she said, immediately authoritative. This was a side of Esme I had never before seen. In the back of my mind, I found myself wishing that she would be this concerned over me were I ever in danger. "I have already tried Rose and Alice's phones several times; neither answered. Call Jasper and Emmett – tell them to get back here immediately. I'll call Carlisle and let him know what is going on."

Emmett was already on his way back when I called him and the way I heard the tires screech and the Jag's engine gun the second I said Alice could be in danger, I figured Jasper would not be far behind.

"Carlisle is just finishing at the hospital," Esme said, hanging up her phone. "He will be home as soon as possible."

"Good. Jasper and Emmett are both on their way. They should be back shortly."

"Do you think they will be alright, Hunter?" she asked, quietly.

"We will find them," I responded, determined that we would.

*******

"We should go in groups," I said. Jasper, Emmett, Carlisle, Esme and I were all seated around the dining room table. "I only smelled one, but I did not investigate, so there may be more."

"Should we leave anyone here?" Carlisle asked. "In case the vampires trace our scent here?"  
"No," Jasper responded, crisply. I had to hand it to him. Despite the anguish I knew he must be feeling, he was extremely composed. He had reverted into battle mode as soon as he walked in the door; tactical planning was like second nature to Jasper. "If they are able to trace us here we are better off confronting them as one large group. We do not know how many there are, so we should not take any chances."

"Do you think we should go as one group or spilt up?" I asked, turning the options over in my mind. "If we split up we can cover more ground, but we will have the advantage of larger numbers if we stay together."

Jasper considered this briefly. "I think it would be better to split up. If we encounter them in the forests, there are more places for us to run to or hide than at the house, so it should be alright."

I nodded once. "I will go with Emmett. You take Carlisle and Esme. And we need to be in constant communication."

"We got that covered," Emmett said, holding up his phone. "Walkie-talkie feature."

"I will take communication for our group," Carlisle said, grimly.

"Let's go then." We all followed Jasper as he rose from the table.

*******

Emmett and I headed west, while Jasper, Carlisle and Esme went east. I started a systematic pattern of combing the forest, searching for anything that would tip me off as to which way Rosalie and Alice may have gone.

"Bro, how are we ever going to find them?" Emmett asked quietly. Hearing the worry in Emmett's typically joking voice was disconcerting. "Their scent is all over these woods – we're never gonna be able to tell which way they went."

"You just have to find the more recent scent," I replied. "You can pick out who they were with each time they came through and then-" I stopped abruptly. I sniffed the tree I was near a second time. Definitely Rosalie's perfume. I took a step in that direction. I could smell a faint odor of a human mixed with Alice's perfume – it must be from when Alice was in Matthew's car this afternoon. "They went this way. Let the others know."

"How did you do that?" Emmett asked, inhaling deeply in the direction I had indicated. "It smells the same as anywhere else. No wonder the Volturi hired you."

I smiled wanly and started off in the direction they had traveled. The others joined us shortly after. Now that we had a trail to follow, there was no need to split up.

The trail was easy to follow and we moved quickly through the forest. However, before long a new scent appeared – an unfamiliar scent. "They were followed," I said, stopping at a line of saplings. "Starting here."

We continued to follow the trail. Suddenly, I stopped again. "A second vampire began following here, on their other side."

This time we proceeded more slowly. "And a third here. And a fourth joined here."

I stopped again at a small clearing. It was not really even a clearing so much as a space made by a fallen tree. "The trail stops here. No, does not stop, but their scent is fainter beyond this point." I stepped out into the clearing and crouched by the fallen log. "Alice tripped over this log."

"Alice doesn't trip," Jasper said, tersely.

"It's true," seconded Carlisle. "She would have seen herself tripping and easily avoided it."

I thought about this as I inhaled deeply. I looked down and inspected the ground a little more closely. "You are right. She did not trip – she was tackled. She fell onto her back." The indents in the ground was a perfect replica of Alice's shoulders.

I stood up and started moving around the clearing. "There were six of them. No, seven. But the seventh one stayed back from the fight. He stood right…here."

"But, with so many, how did Alice not see the attack coming?" Carlisle asked.

"Because she was preoccupied with how _stupid_ I was being," Jasper said, angrily hitting a tree. I could see the massive trunk tilt slightly. "If I hadn't been so stupid and childish, she would have seen it coming."

"Jasper, dear, you cannot blame yourself for this," Esme said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

He shook it off. "Where does the trail lead to from here?"  
We followed the trail, but it only led us to the road, where it abruptly stopped. "They must have gotten into a car," I said. "We cannot go any further with it."

We returned home in silence, each lost in our own thoughts and worries. However, I could feel Jasper's despair consume me.

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_Do you hate me for stopping it here? If so, I totally understand. I would hate me too – but it was just too good of a spot to pass up! Let me know what you think of it!_

_And mark your calendars for December 26__th__ to find out what happens next!_


	12. Part I: Chapter 11

_Hey, all! I hope you're all having a good holiday (whatever holiday you celebrate). Here's the update you've all been waiting for. Took me long enough, I know. But you've all been so gloriously patient! I hope you like it! Please review - I love to hear what you think!_

_Just a little note - I rated it 'T' because there does end up being some violence in later chapters. I tried to minimize it, but fights have that annoying tendency of being violent, ya know?  
_

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Chapter 11

The next morning, Esme called the school to tell them that Rosalie and Alice had come down with a sudden illness and that Carlisle insisted that everyone stay home for the remainder of the week because it may be contagious and he did not want the other kids at school to catch it. I had thought that there was no way the school would accept this, but apparently, no one wanted to question Dr. Devinshire's opinion on the subject, so we were excused for the rest of the week.

However, with Jasper moping about the house, I began to believe that I might have been better off going to school. Jasper's own depression over Alice and Rosalie going missing was being fed by Emmett's sadness and worry and projected out to the rest of us. Although I would have been bored at school, at least I would be able to think; the overwhelming feelings of sadness were weighing heavily on my mind. The only thing that made it through the depression was a sense of restlessness over the fact that we were not doing anything. I knew that there really was nothing that we could do, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

Around noon, there was a knock at the door. Without even waiting for someone to open it for him, Edward came striding in.

"We came as quickly as we could. What's going on? Is there any news?"

Carlisle shook his head sadly, not seeming at all surprised by Edward and Bella's sudden entrance. He must have called them last night after we returned home. "We have no leads to follow, so there is nothing we can do until we know who this unknown coven is."

"I think we are about to find out." Everyone looked at me in surprise, so I explained. "There are a group of vampires approaching the house from the northeast. The wind caught their scent." I motioned towards the still-open door; there was a strong breeze blowing through it. "It is the same ones who were in the forest last night."

At my words, the depression lifted a little and was replaced with a mixture of worry and anger. Everyone in the room tensed just a little more. In complete silence, with no need for direction, Jasper and I moved to opposite sides of the door – the two most strategic spots from which to attack anyone coming through the door. Carlisle positioned himself directly in front of the door, with Esme to his left and Edward to his right. Emmett chose a spot between Carlisle and me and Bella mirrored his position on the other side. We left the door open to be better able to gauge the visitors' distance. We did not have to wait long for them to arrive.

There were two of them; another two stayed back in the forest. It boded well that there were three missing – they must have left them behind with Rosalie and Alice, meaning they were still alive. I could tell by the way that he carried himself that the black-haired male approaching the house was the leader of the coven. The other was tall, blond female who looked strangely familiar, but I could not place the source of this familiarity.

"Oh, dear god, no." Although Jasper had merely whispered these words, we all easily caught them.

"Jasper?" Carlisle asked inquisitively.

Jasper hissed an explanation quickly. "His name is Carlos. He was a rival of Maria's – I destroyed his coven decades ago, but he managed to escape. He was the only one who survived."

This was all we got, as the newcomers were coming within hearing range. They approached the steps to the porch, ascending them slowly. They attempted to look unconcerned, but their nervousness was betrayed by the tenseness of their muscles and the way they kept casting covert glances back at where their companions were in the forest.

The leader stepped over the threshold into the room with the woman a step behind him. He quickly surveyed the scene, passing over each of us in turn without any acknowledgment. _He knows what he is doing._ Although he was on our territory, he wanted to make sure that we knew that he would be in charge of this confrontation. He knew that we needed him to get to Rosalie and Alice and he intended to use that advantage to its fullest. Carlos's gaze stopped on Jasper.

However, before he could speak, the woman gasped audibly. I turned my attention to her and found her staring at me with wide eyes. Suddenly, I remembered where I had seen her before. She and her brother had been a part of a small group of nomads who had been too obvious about their meals. The Volturi had decided to put a stop to this by making an example of her brother. I was the one who had killed him. I grinned at the memory.

Carlos shot a warning glance at the woman, who continued to stare at me with a mixture of fear and hatred. He then turned back to Jasper and, in a low, menacing voice, said, "Do you remember me, Jasper Whitlock?"

Jasper did not respond, his face an expressionless mask. Carlos continued, "Do you remember how you destroyed my coven, mercilessly? How you killed my mate, in front of my eyes? I hope you do, Jasper Whitlock, because that is exactly what I am going to do to you."

"We could kill you right here. I would relish it," Jasper growled in response.

Carlos simply laughed. "You could. But then you would never find your precious mate, now would you? You cannot kill me without killing yourself too."

"Alice," he whispered, quietly. Jasper's next words were strained. I could hear the anguish in them, knowing that he had realized the truth in Carlos's words. "What do you want?"

"To make you suffer as you made me suffer," Carlos responded, maliciously, spitting out the words. "There is nothing you can do to stop me. I have spent half a century studying your life, learning everything about you. I know about your family here in Minot and I know about your 'niece' in Washington." At this, there was a sharp intake of breath from Bella. "And I will kill them all. And your _Alice_ will die last. Before your eyes, just as you did to me. You destroyed my life and, in turn, I will destroy yours."

"You will not be able to," he growled in return. "I will destroy your coven again, just as I did decades ago. Only this time, I will be more _thorough._"

"Ah, but to do that, my dear Jasper, you have to _find_ my coven. I have been waiting half a century for my revenge. I will draw it out – over months, over years, over decades. I have an eternity and I can be very patient. I hope you can keep a constant eye on everyone you love that you still have left, Jasper Whitlock, to ward off any possible attack, for you will not be expecting it when it happens."

With that, Carlos and his companion retreated from the house, taking off at a run the moment they reached the woods.

For a moment, it was entirely silent in the house. It was broken by Edward's quiet words. "He knows everything about our family, from where we've lived to each of our lives and our friends in the vampire world. He's been watching us for decades."

"I sentenced my entire family to death," Jasper whispered to himself.

Immediately, Esme was at his side with a comforting hand on his arm. "You have done nothing of the sort, Jasper. We are lucky that you came to join us and we will make it through this, just as we have made it through every hardship that we've encountered."

"How?" he asked, weakly.

This time it was Carlisle who responded. "Well, obviously we must not venture out of the house alone – we can only move in groups. And we must make sure that Renessme is safe."

"Bella and I should go back and get her," Edward said immediately.'

"Edward," Bella said reasonably, "I honestly don't think there's a safer place in the world for her than Forks. She's being protected by two entire packs of werewolves who have been _itching_ to kill a vampire. No one's going to come even close to her with Jacob around and there's no chance he'll let her out of his sight."

At least the mutt was good for something.

Edward nodded reluctantly at her words, smiling despite the gravity of the situation. He must have heard my thought about Jacob. "Well, we should at least call him and warn him about it." Bella agreed to this and took out her phone to call Jacob. Edward continued, "It will likely be some time before they attack though."

"Why would they wait?" Emmett asked.

"The woman is scared to death of Hunter. She has every intention of trying to convince Carlos of giving up the idea entirely because she believes that the Volturi have gotten involved and are on our side."

"This is good news. It will definitely give us an advantage if she can convince him," Carlisle said thoughtfully. "We should also let the Denali clan know what is happening, as he knows who our friends are. We want to make sure they are careful as well."

"But what are we going to _do_?" Jasper asked, frustrated and restless. "We have to find Alice and Rose. Anyway, we can't just live forever in constant fear that he will attack."

"Well, obviously we have to kill him."

Everyone turned to look at me. For a moment, the silence was almost unbearable.

"You don't know him, Hunter," Jasper replied. "He can elude attack better than any vampire I have ever encountered. Last time it took years to find his coven; and in that time he managed to kill half of ours. If he doesn't want to be found, it is impossible to find him."

"That just makes it all the more fun for me," I replied with a wicked grin.

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_Was it worth the wait??? Let me know what you thought of it! :)_


	13. Part I: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

It made the most sense to start while the scent was still fresh, so I set out immediately. Since I could move faster and more stealthily by myself, I went alone. When I had a lead as to where they were going, I would get the others. It was just as it had always gone while hunting a coven for the Volturi. Although I would usually go alone if it was only one or two, if it was an entire coven, several more members of the guard would accompany me. I would scout out their location and then the others would join me to decimate it.

Despite the fact that it had been years since I had left the Volturi guard, all of my training came back to me automatically. My natural talent for tracking made these skills practically a second nature to me that I could easily slide into without thought. I let my senses guide me completely as I moved silently through the woods. I mainly followed the scent of the woman; she was not as careful to avoid brushing against the leaves of trees as Carlos, so she was much easier to follow. Jasper was right about Carlos having a talent for eluding pursuit. Although his trail would still have been possible for me to follow, it would have been much more difficult. Without my extensive training and experience, I likely would not have been able to follow it at all.

I paused for a second to pick up the scent again. They were still headed northwest. I started to wonder if they were leading me into a trap. By following such a straight path, it was easy for me to follow them. They had yet to take a roundabout path or a purposeful wrong turn to throw me off their trail. As I remembered, this woman was not particularly difficult to find the first time I hunted her clan either.

After a half hour more of running through the forest, I paused again. I noticed that one of the scents suddenly veered off to the right; it ended in a low set of bushes. _You have got to be kidding me. Could he be any more obvious about it?_ I kept running for a minute, now able to hear the faintest footsteps behind me, moving quickly so as to catch up with me. I purposefully slowed a little, allowing him to catch up. When I judged that he was just out of sight range, I quickly jumped up onto a low-hanging branch that was still covered in brilliant yellow leaves.

A stocky, dark-haired vampire came barreling into my line of sight. He must have been counting on me continuing to move in the same direction because he did not slow at where I disappeared from the trail. I silently moved above him through the trees, as he continued on a trail that did not exist. After a moment, he seemed to notice that the trail was gone as well and paused in confusion, giving me my opportunity. I dropped down from the limb I was on and landed on my feet behind him. I made just enough noise to cause him to turn his head. But, even looking at me, caught off guard as he was, he did not stand a chance. I already had my hands up, ready to lock on either side of his head. When I let go, he dropped to his knees and fell face first onto the hard ground.

Now I had a dilemma. I needed to start a fire before his body could repair itself, but starting a fire would give off smoke that would alert the others that he had been caught. _Let them leave another for me. It is all the fewer we will have to deal with later._ I swiftly dug a deep pit and tossed the vampire's body in it with several sticks and logs and dead leaves. I pulled out a lighter and lit a stick, dropping it into the pit as well. I stayed just long enough to be sure that the burning stick caught the rest of the wood on fire as well before continuing along the trail.

This time when they reached the road they had not gotten into a car, but had instead continued running through the line of trees on the side of the road. This would make my job a lot easier. Although it would be possible for me to follow the trail of a car, the scent of the exhaust dissipated quickly; with the interlude of taking care of the vampire they left behind for me, I would likely have been too late to be able to follow.

The scent began to become much stronger; they must have stopped somewhere close ahead of me. I jumped up into the trees and began moving silently through them. Shortly, I was able to hear and see the group of vampires. They were in a clearing that contained a jeep, much like Emmett's and a luxury sedan. I could see Alice and Rosalie had been tossed into the still-open trunk of the sedan, not moving. Alice then moaned slightly. They were just unconscious, not dead. I breathed a sigh of relief. I briefly wondered about what they may have given them; it had to be strong to knock out a vampire. The only thing I could think of would be a large dose of foreign venom.

When large doses of foreign venom are introduced into the a vampire's body, it slows a vampire down greatly; if the dose is large enough it could even knock them out as the body tries to process the venom and get it out of the body. It was part of the reason that vampires bit each other when they fought – the more you bite, the more venom gets into your opponent's body, causing him or her to slow down enough to allow you to kill them.

"Do you see the smoke, Carlos? They got Andre and they'll be coming after us now!"

I turned my attention away from Alice and Rosalie to the conversation between Carlos and the woman. There were four others – three men and one woman – standing around the clearing, tense and alert. They clearly sided with the woman's point of view, but did not participate in the conversation. The women had more power the coven than any of them.

"Yelena," Carlos said, soothingly. "We do not know that the smoke bodes ill. Perhaps Andre was able to kill the tracker and is now on his way to return to us."

"You do not know the Volturi!" Yelena yelled back in her heavily accented English. "They will not stop until we are dead!"

"That is _if_ the Volturi are, in fact, helping the coven."

"They _are_," the woman insisted. "Their tracker was with them. I do not care what you say about him possibly not being with the Volturi any longer. They would not let him leave – he was their best, most ruthless tracker!" I smiled to myself at the compliment.

"Yelena," Carlos responded sharply, "we are going to continue with the plan whether he is with the Volturi or not. Andre will meet us in Arlington. Get in the cars." This last order was directed to the entire coven and they immediately did as they were told, three in each vehicle. I watched until the cars had gotten up onto the road and sped away.

For a while, I ran along the road slightly behind the cars, to be sure that they were headed to Arlington like they said they were. About ten miles up the road, the jeep turned off into a driveway, while the sedan continued south. I followed the jeep. The driveway led to an abandoned farmhouse. The jeep parked in front of it and the vampires in it got out and headed inside the house.

I moved back to the Cullens' house a quickly as I could.

*******

"That is just like Carlos, to have set up a base in his old city." Jasper was pacing the room, muttering to himself.

"But Rose and Alice, they were alright?" Emmett asked.

"They were unconscious, but they were alive."

"We will follow them, of course," Edward said. "And we will get Rose and Alice back."

"We cannot all go, Edward," Carlisle responded. "They left three of the vampires here that we must worry about. They must be keeping an eye on us – if we all leave, they will alert Carlos and they will be ready for us all."

"What does that matter?" Edward asked angrily. "We are evenly matched – seven against seven."

"Six," I corrected. "I killed one in the woods."

"Even better."

"But they still have Rose and Alice, so it does not matter if we are evenly matched. They still have the upper hand," Carlisle explained patiently.

"Hunter and I will go to Arlington. The rest of you will stay here and keep and eye on the vampires they left behind." It was the first time Jasper had spoken to anyone but himself since I had returned.

"If it is just the two of you, you will be outnumbered," Carlisle pointed out.

"No, we won't," Jasper said, determinedly. "We are going to pay a visit to an old friend."

We all looked at him inquisitively, but Jasper did not explain further.

*******

Jasper and I took his Jaguar down to Texas, pushing the top speed of the car the entire way. We were in Denton by the next afternoon. We cruised through an upscale neighborhood and stopped at a large white house, with all the shades drawn on the sunny October day.

Jasper handed me a hat. I followed his lead and pulled the brim down over my face. As I got out of the car, I flipped up the collar of my jacket to cover my neck and shoved my hands in my coat pockets. The day was far too warm for any human to be wearing a coat, but the dark, heavy coats were far less noticeable than our skin would have been, sparkling in the sunlight.

We ascended the steps and Jasper confidently approached the door and knocked. A second later it was opened by a petite, dark-haired woman. Her incredibly pale skin contrasted greatly with the darkness of her hair. She looked startled as she looked into Jasper's face.

"Maria. I need your help."

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_Please review! I'd love to know what you think so far! :)_


	14. Part I: Chapter 13

_Thanks for all the encouraging reviews! It really makes me want to keep working on the story!  
_

_And to all of you who have commented on how much you love Hunter - first of all, thank you - I'm glad you like him, and, second, I totally know what you mean...I'm pretty in love with him myself. :)_

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Chapter 13

"It has been years, Jasper Whitlock. What could possibly bring you to come to me for help now?"

It was the first time anyone had spoken since we had arrived. Maria had led us into the house and we had been sitting in silence in the living room for a full five minutes. Jasper and Maria were staring at each other the entire time; I almost felt that there was a measure of hostility in their demeanors.

"An old – friend – of ours is currently causing my family some difficulty."

"Jasper, we've known one another for over a century. Cut the formality."

Jasper sighed. "It's Carlos. He has created a new coven and intends to kill my family in revenge for us destroying his old coven."

"You're a little too anxious for that to be it, Jasper." Maria knew him well.

"He's kidnapped my wife." Jasper's voice was strained as he said this. "And my sister. If I do not find him, he will kill them. Will you help me, Maria? Please?"

For a moment, there was silence, as Maria watched him through narrowed eyes. "Of course I will help you. How do you intend for us to find him?"

"This is Hunter," Jasper said, gesturing towards me. Maria looked at me for the first time since she had opened the door. "He overheard them saying that they were headed to Arlington."

"That's all we have to go on?" Maria asked. "That won't get us very far, Jasper."

"Hunter used to be a tracker for the Volturi. He will be able to find them."

Maria narrowed her eyes, looking at me a little more shrewdly, sizing me up. I stared back impassively – it was a reaction I had gotten used to over the years.

"So, Tracker, can you find them?"

"Of course I can," I responded simply.

Maria nodded, accepting my response and turned back to Jasper.

*******

When night fell, I left to go in search of anything that would lead me to Carlos. Jasper and Maria stayed behind to make plans as to what they would do once I found them. It brought back memories of hunting vampires for the Volturi when I would be sent to a city with no leads in order to find whomever had offended the vampiric royalty. I spent the nights wandering the streets of Arlington, searching for any hint of something nonhuman. My search that night was fruitless, but I returned to the hunt as soon as the sun had set the next evening.

That evening, as usual, I started with the most obvious place – a newspaper. I was able to go through it much quicker than I ever had in the past, due to my greatly improved reading skills. When working for the Volturi, I had to labor through it looking for the few words that I knew that could tip me off. Now, within a matter of seconds I found the story I was looking for.

"_Construction worker's mysterious death – 'Yesterday, around 3:00 in the afternoon, Jeffery Daniels left work at Billings Construction Company, only to be found dead hours later. Police spokesman say that it looks like some sort of an animal attack. However, he had no comment on what type of predatory animal could be residing in the Arlington Industrial Park…" _

It went on to say the location where the body had been found – only blocks from the construction site. Since the attack was so early in the day, it must be close to where Carlos and his coven had fled to.

I shook my head in disgust over how simple it was to find the article. _Amateurs. And Jasper said this Carlos was good._ Granted, most vampires were not particularly prepared to elude a tracker trained by the Volturi, but I was still a little disappointed – I had been hoping for at least some challenge.

I decided to go investigate further before bringing the news back to Jasper.

When I reached the construction site, I was completely alert, ready for an attack at any moment. I knew I probably should have gotten Jasper and Maria – in the Volturi I would usually have at least one other guard member with me by now since there were more than two that I was hunting – but, despite Jasper and Maria's fighting experience, I did not know how good they were at investigating without being noticed. Every member of the guard had been trained to do this work; from what Jasper had told me of his past, Jasper and Maria were more used to head on attacks, rather than stealthy subterfuge.

Moving down the street from where the construction company had been working, the street began looking progressively more derelict. As I stalked through the shadows of one warehouse, I caught the scent. It was definitely the woman, Yelena. The trail was a few hours old, but still obvious enough for me to follow it easily. It led to an abandoned warehouse surrounded by a chain-link fence. I laughed to myself – it looked like it was taken straight out of a bad vampire horror film.

I effortlessly jumped the fence, landing gracefully on my feet. Staying to the shadows, I moved slowly across the empty parking lot towards the warehouse. The outside wall of the building was completely smooth, but there was a small window with a ledge most of the way up. I jumped up and caught hold of the ledge, taking care to not let my legs hit the metal wall in front of me and alert those inside to my presence. From my position at the window, I was able to see the majority of the warehouse.

The inside of the warehouse consisted of a single, large room. I was correct in my assumption that it was abandoned – although there were a few rows of shelves on the far side, they were all empty. Alice and Rose were sitting in metal folding chairs in the center of the room, with two of the vampires guarding them. Rosalie was still unconscious, her head tilted up towards the ceiling. Alice was more alert, but the way she moved her head was sluggish – she was obviously only barely conscious. Both had their hands tied. _Really? Rope? These guys have watched _way_ too many horror movies._ I supposed that in their current weakened states, the ropes would be enough to hold them, but as soon as they regained some strength, they would easily be able to break through them.

Alice's eyes briefly flickered towards the window I was looking through. She allowed herself a small smile. For a moment, I was surprised, but I should have known that Alice would see that I was going to be up at that window looking in. Having sized up the situation, I decided to head back in the direction of Maria's house to get Jasper and Maria. A movement below caught my attention; Alice had shaken her head slightly. _Trying to clear it from all the venom they have pumped into her._ I had to go get the others before they drugged Rose and Alice up any more.

Suddenly, conversation of the Volturi caught my attention. My sensitive hearing did not require me to open the window to catch every word of the conversation that Carlos and Yelena were having.

"Yelena, you must calm down. Everyone knows that the Volturi have no love lost for the Cullen coven. They are not going to join forces with them." Carlos was clearly annoyed with Yelena's worries about the Volturi hunting them.

"Maybe we should turn the seer over to them. Then we would know for sure they would not come after us. You know how they like talented ones for their guard."

"No!" Carlos yelled, sharply. "The seer must die. If indeed they are working with the Cullens and come after us, we will worry about it then. But the seer is Whitlock's mate, so she will die in front of him."

Yelena turned away from him, muttering darkly about how Carlos's plans for revenge were going to get them all killed.

I smirked, slightly pleased with the extent to which my mere presence frightened her. I dropped from the ledge and stealthily moved back through the parking lot and jumped the fence.

*******

"We should go after them now, while they are still staying at the warehouse."

"Good plan," Jasper said in response to Maria's statement and continued to discuss plans for ambushing Carlos's coven. I was not paying much attention because for some reason I could not get the image of Alice shaking her head out of my mind.

Jasper turned to me with a questioning look on his face. "You don't like the plan." It was a statement rather than a question. "I can feel your uneasiness about it. What's wrong?"

"Nothing, it is exactly the plan I would have come up with," I responded.

"Then why are you so worried about it?"

"I cannot really say. It is weird, but this image from the warehouse when Alice looked at me and shook her head keeps running through my mind. I am sure it is nothing, that she was just trying to clear her head. There is no need to worry about it."

Maria shrugged and turned back to the map of Arlington that was laid out on the table, but Jasper's look became sharper. "What exactly had you decided the second before she shook her head?"

"What?"

"What were you thinking about? Had you just made a decision to do anything?" His tone was now urgent.

I ran back through my memory of what had been going through my mind. "I had just jumped up onto the ledge and about a second later Alice looked at me and smiled. And I was surprised, until I remembered that she would know I was there. And then I was about to come back to get you guys. And she shook her head. And then the conversation between Carlos and Yelena caught my attention."

"We aren't going tonight," Jasper said, decisively. Maria and I looked at him in confusion. He explained, "Alice shook her head the second you decided that you were going to come get us. That means that for some reason, Alice does not want us to come there tonight."

"Jasper," Maria said, placing a hand on his arm, "I think you may be reading too far into this. Hunter is probably right – she was likely just clearing her head."

"No," Jasper responded. "I know Alice and everything Alice does has a reason behind it. She saw something, so she does not want us to go tonight. There must be something we are missing."

The scene at the warehouse flashed back into my mind. "There were two vampires guarding them. Only one came down with Carlos and Yelena – the others must have left Minot."

Jasper shook his head. "I just talked to Carlisle minutes before you got here. The three that stayed in North Dakota are still there."

"Then there are more than we thought," Maria pointed out. "But we do not know how many more there could be."

"So what are we going to do then?" I ventured.

"You are going to go back tomorrow night to see if it is going to be safe. If it is, we will go tomorrow. It will give us another day to work on our plans."

Jasper was determined, so neither Maria nor I argued with him. I just hoped that Jasper was right about the reason behind Alice shaking her head and the delay would not make us too late to save them.


	15. Part I: Chapter 14

_Thank you for all the reviews - I'm glad you're liking the story! To show my appreciation, here's a little New Year's present for you all :)_

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Chapter 14

The next night I ran through the streets quickly, knowing exactly where I was going. I reached the fence and easily jumped it as I had the night before. I landed softly on the other side and straightened, coming face to face with vampire I had not seen before.

I barely had time to register his presence before he slammed me into the fence with all his strength. It hurt. A lot. With that kind of strength, he had to be a newborn. Grabbing onto the fence, I kicked out my leg to catch him in the back of the knees, causing his legs to buckle. When he was on his knees, I slammed my elbow back to catch him in the side of the head momentarily dazing him. I took the second I had before he regained his senses locking my hands firmly on either side of his head and twist.

I let his body drop to the ground and surveyed the area for any further danger. I was surprised to see two more unfamiliar vampires moving swiftly in my direction. I assumed that they were likely newborns as well. Luckily, although newborns had incredible strength and speed, they were often not incredibly bright, their cognitive skills being dulled by the bloodlust. Throughout my time in the Volturi guard, I had had to deal with many newborns – they usually were the ones who caused the most trouble.

I quickly surveyed the scene around me. The man on the left was approaching faster than the woman to my right. I could see the bloodlust burning in their crimson eyes. _They are new enough that they do not realize that killing a vampire will not satiate their thirst._ Carlos must have made them very recently. With the rate they were both moving, there was no way I would be able to get out before they would reach me. I decided that there was no sense in delaying the inevitable, so I took two long strides towards the man, stopping in a crouch just beyond his reach.

He lunged towards me and I feinted back. He lunged a second time; this time I grabbed his right arm. Using his momentum, I twisted his arm behind his back. Now behind him, I slammed him into the fence. Grabbing his neck where it met his head, I twisted as hard as I could.

This had taken only a few seconds and the woman had just reached me. I waited until she was directly behind me and jumped into the air, turning a backflip so I landed behind her. Wrapping my left hand through her long brown hair and pulling back, I brought up my knee, slamming it into her back hard enough to have paralyzed a human. As it was, it was enough to pause her for just long enough for me to get a good grip on her chin with my right hand.

Moving swiftly, I grabbed the body of the first newborn and threw it onto the second two. I was not sure what I was going to do with them yet, but I calculated that I should have enough time to check out the warehouse and get them out of here before their bodies could repair themselves. Luckily, as I was leaving that evening Maria had shoved a small bottle containing gasoline into my hands, whispering "just in case." It looked like that bottle was going to be coming in handy tonight.

I heard a low growl behind me.

I turned instantly and saw seven more vampires approaching me. From their immense muscles and thirsting eyes, they were all newborns. I paused for a fraction of a second in shock. _Oh, damn._ I would not be able to take seven by myself.

I opened the bottle Maria had given me and threw it onto the pile of bodies. I pulled out a book of matches and lit one of them in the same movement. I tossed it into the little spill of gasoline, flames immediately flaring up and I jumped the fence in front of me. I ran through the abandoned streets in the opposite direction of Maria's house. After a moment, I leaped on the roof of a building and turned in the direction of my destination, continuing as far as I could on rooftops before I returned to the ground, watching for anyone following the entire way.

*******

Jasper was waiting for me on the front porch of Maria's house. His anxiousness came through in his voice, "Well, is there anything new? Is it still safe for us to go tonight?"

We walked inside to the empty house. "Where is Maria?" I asked.

"She went out. She said there was something important that she had to do," Jasper responded dismissively. "But what's happening?"

"Well," I began, "there are definitely more than we had originally counted on."

"How many more?"

"Uh, I am not really sure, actually. As soon as I jumped the fence, I encountered a few newborns. I took care of them, but there were seven more, so I had to get out of there. I did not get a chance to get a look in the warehouse to see how many were inside."

"You say you saw seven more – did they know you were there?"

I paused for a second, thinking about the blaze I had started in the warehouse parking lot. "Yeah," I responded, "I think it is a pretty safe bet to assume that they know I was there."

Jasper sat down in one of the chairs at the dining room table, considering this. As he thought Maria burst through the door.

"How many are there?" she asked, seeing that I had returned.

"Newborns," Jasper responded. Maria raised her eyebrows and turned back to me.

"I killed three, but there are at least seven more. I was not able to discover exactly how many there were."

"Sounds like Carlos," she responded, turning the new information over in her mind.

"I think we're going to have to call Carlisle and have the others come down here. We can't just barge in there with the three of us against that many. Not with them being alerted to our presence."

I nodded. Jasper was right; the three of us may be able to fight off the seven newborns plus the four we knew about if they were surprised – it would be close, but possible – but we had no clue how many there actually were.

"Actually, I already took the liberty of rounding up a few friends, just in case." She shrugged apologetically when Jasper turned to her in surprise. "Now, I know you may not be particularly _happy _to see some of them, but we needed someone, Jasper."

Jasper's eyes narrowed. "Who did you just go see, Maria?"

I watched the exchange, riveted. I had only gotten a general overview of Jasper's past – most of it on the way down here just so I would have some background on Maria.

"Oh, you know, just a few of the old boys."

"Which ones?" Jasper asked. When Maria did not respond, he said, "For god's sake Maria, tell me before they show up, please."

"Jesse, Christian and Jericho."

Jasper quickly got up from the table, knocking the chair onto the floor and stormed out of the house. I stared questioningly after him.

Seeing the look on my face, Maria explained, "They were a few of my lieutenants back when Jasper was a part of my coven. They were under Jasper in the chain of command, but far more ruthless. They were among the few that I actually kept alive past their first year." She paused for a second as she looked towards the door Jasper had just exited from. " Jasper does not particularly like to be reminded of his past."

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. Maria opened it to reveal three ragged men standing on the porch. One was dark-haired wearing an expensive-looking suit with the tie undone and a vicious smirk, one with flaxen hair and a pleasant smile that was in great contrast with his crimson eyes and the third with light brown hair and a dark coat with the collar turned up. All three were covered in battle scars. They entered the house, nodding a greeting to Maria on their way in.

"Hunter, this is Jesse," she indicated the dark-haired one, who nodded suspiciously in acknowledgement, "Christian," the blond, whose smile faded a little, "and Jericho." This time she motioned towards the one with light brown hair; his eyes narrowed a little. "This is Hunter. He is a part of Jasper's coven; he's here to help with the fight against Carlos."

"You ever fought, kid?" Jesse asked, skeptically taking in my 17-year-old appearance. Each of the three men looked to be in their mid-twenties when they were turned.

"He's decades older than you are, Jesse." Automatically, the three turned to where Jasper was standing in the doorway from the living room. "With plenty more kills than you ever had."

"Whitlock, long time no see." This time it was Christian who spoke. He looked into Jasper's eyes. "So you have gone soft on us, have you?"

"Enough, Christian," Maria said. "We have more important things to worry about right now." She turned to Jasper, "I've already briefed them on the basics of what's going on."

"Hunter?" Jasper asked.

"They are set up in a warehouse in an abandoned part of Arlington. There are at least eleven of them – seven newborns and four others. There may be more, the seven were all I saw before I got out of there."

"You just booked it? You didn't take any of them out?"

I could tell I was not going to like Jesse's attitude. "There were ten."

Christian gave a low whistle. "You took out three newborns, by yourself? You're better than we thought, kid."

"You three will be taking the newborns outside," Jasper said, crisply, sliding back into his military days. "They will know that we are coming, so, knowing Carlos, the newborns are likely to be outside on watch. Maria, Hunter and I will take the ones inside, including the older vampires."

"You sure the kid can fight well enough to take out an adult? It ain't nothing like fighting newborns, boy." The last part of Jesse's remark was directed towards me. He was definitely going to get on my nerves. "What kind of fighting experience does he have anyway?"

"He was a member of the Volturi guard. For almost a century."

That silenced him.

"I say we forget these guys. I can call Jane; she owes me a couple favors. She can be here in a day and will be infinitely more helpful."

Jesse's eyes widened slightly. Jane was one of the most feared members of the Volturi guard, so everyone knew about her. Jasper laughed humorlessly. "If it were anyone but Alice, I'd take you up on that."

*******

The six of us stood in the shadows across the street from the chain-link fence surrounding the warehouse. I inhaled deeply and Jasper looked expectantly at me.

"There are fifteen of them total. Nine are outside, six inside."

The others looked impressed. "Maybe he does have some talent," Jesse whispered. Since finding out I had been in the Volturi guard, Jesse's attitude towards me had changed dramatically.

"That leaves three for each of you and two for each of us," Jasper said. "Can you handle that?" Jesse, Christian and Jericho all nodded. "Good. Let's go."

We stalked up to the fence. They knew we were coming anyway, so we made no effort to hide our presence. Jasper tore the gate off of its hinges. Immediately a newborn materialized out of the shadows next to where Jasper and Jesse stood. I came up behind him and snapped his neck in a single movement. Letting him fall to the ground, I turned to Jesse and said, "Thought I would help you out a little, _kid_."

He laughed shortly before turning to the newborns that were charging towards us. Jasper, Maria and I ignored them, heading straight for the warehouse, easily dodging the head-on attacks of the newborns. Throwing open the doors of the warehouse, we found two of the vampires waiting for us. Two more were guarding Rosalie, who was still only partially conscious. Alice was nowhere in sight.

Maria and Jasper split up, each taking one of the two attacking. I quickly surveyed the scene, but not seeing Carlos and Yelena, I went for the two guarding Rosalie.

The woman gave a guttural snarl as she lunged towards me. I purposely moved slowly, allowing her to catch my arm in her teeth. Using the perfect opportunity it gave me, I wrapped my free hand in her hair and pulled her head back, exposing her neck and bit into it. She shrieked and struggled away from me as the man came up behind me. I could hear him approach and, waiting until the second he had come within range, I slammed my elbow into his ribs as hard as I could, hearing a distinct crack of a few of the bones. Pushing off of the woman, I spun around, grabbing the man's neck with my right hand and his left arm with my left hand, effectively turning him around and sinking my teeth into his throat.

The woman jumped up behind me, sinking her teeth in my back. A cheap shot, by any standards. I growled, letting the man go, and flipped her over my back onto the ground. I swiftly stepped to the left, avoiding the man as he lunged towards me. On his next lunge, I grabbed his arm, twisting it around his body and sinking my teeth into his shoulder. He threw me off harshly, sending my flying across the room into the empty metal shelves.

In an instant, I was back over by him, catching him in the back of the knees with my legs and his arm in my teeth at the same time. The woman jumped up from where she had been on the ground and sunk her teeth into my upper arm. Letting go of the man as I growled, I attempted to shake the woman off. I threw her up against the wall with a loud thud. At that instant the man came up behind me and sunk his teeth into the base of my neck.

Suddenly, I heard a low snarl and a cry from the man as he let go of me. I turned swiftly to see Rosalie with her teeth sunk into the man's shoulder. She had regained enough consciousness to break free of her ropes and come up behind the man. Taking his head in my hands, I quickly snapped his neck.

"Thanks, Rose," I said, dropping the man, as she let him go.

"Anytime," she replied hazily, sinking back down into the chair and closing her eyes, looking slightly dizzy.

I heard the woman get up and start moving towards me with quiet footsteps. I remained motionless, looking at Rose as though worried over her, letting the woman believe that she was actually able to sneak up on me. As she reached her right hand up to grab my neck, I instantly snaked my hand back to grab her wrist. Twisting her wrist, I pulled her towards me, wrapping her arm around her body. I bit into her neck and she shrieked in pain, jabbing her left elbow back into my ribs. Taking advantage of the moment for which my grip loosened, she dug her teeth into the arm that still held her wrist and struggled free.

We circled one another for a moment, neither of us willing to make the first move. I feinted towards her and she moved in to defend herself against the attack, realizing too late that it was not coming. As she attempted to move back in the middle of the motion, she was momentarily off-balance. I took advantage of this second and grabbed her should knocking her to the ground. I swiftly dropped down and finished her off, looking around to see how Jasper and Maria were faring. Jasper had beaten the male he was fighting and was distracting the other as Maria went in for the kill.

I started as I heard the slow sound of clapping coming from the far side of the warehouse.

"Well done, Jasper. You do put on a good show," Carlos drawled as he appeared out of the shadows. Yelena was close behind him, holding tightly to Alice, her teeth poised above her throat, ready to bite. I could see Jasper tense as Alice came into view. For a moment, there was complete silence.

It was broken by Alice. "Don't worry, Jas. You're going to win." She smiled, still weak from the having been knocked out for so long.

"Although your mate seems to believe you will come out of this alive, I would not be so sure," Carlos sneered. "Your friend may have defeated a few of my newest members of my coven earlier, but I can promise you there are more where they come from."

"Really?" Jasper asked, politely raising his eyebrows. Carlos had apparently been too engrossed in the fight inside to realize what had been happening outside. Idly, I wondered how Jesse, Christian and Jericho were doing outside. "I warn you, Carlos, it's usually a very bad idea to bet against Alice. She has a nasty talent for always being right."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement in the shadows by the door. The figure moved too stealthily for a newborn. For a moment, I tensed, but then I saw a flash of Jericho's light brown hair as he passed through a sliver of light before disappearing into the shadows again. If Jasper noticed him, he gave no indication of it.

A shriek from outside caught everyone's attention. As one, we all turned our attention towards the door, outside of which we heard a low laugh. _That would be Jesse._ Apparently, he was still doing all right.

Suddenly there was another shriek from inside the warehouse. Jericho had taken advantage of the momentary distraction and sunk his teeth into Yelena's throat, causing her to shriek and let go of Alice, who quickly danced out of her reach. With Alice no longer in danger, the rest of us were by the fight in an instant, Jasper and Maria going after Carlos, as I moved onto Yelena. Yelena had just thrown Jericho off of her; I heard a crash as he hit one of the shelves and it fell on top of him. Yelena turned her crimson eyes on me.

"Would you like to go out the same way as your beloved brother?" I taunted, eliciting a furious snarl from Yelena. She lunged towards me, but I easily moved out of the way. She lunged again, this time catching my left forearm in her teeth. I batted her off with my right hand, but she came right back, biting into my shoulder. I growled in pain and was about to throw her off when something came crashing into her, tackling her to the ground. It was Jericho. He held her on the ground, her head at an arm's length as she viciously tried to bite him. I came up to them and crouched down, snapping her neck easily as Jericho held her down.

I looked over to the right, where the others were fighting Carlos, just in time to see Jasper dropping Carlos's head to the floor. Jesse and Christian came in a second later. Christian was limping, but other than that, they looked like they came out of the fight relatively unscathed.

Jasper looked around the wreckage grimly. "Let's start a fire."

Jesse, Christian, Jericho and Maria headed outside to gather the bodies of the newborns, while Jasper and I started piling up the ones inside the warehouse with the help of Alice and Rosalie. When they were all in a single pile, Maria produced the container of gasoline that she had brought and left across the street during the fight and doused half the warehouse with it. Jasper lit a match. The flames blazed up the instant the match touched the gasoline, rapidly moving along the entire trail that Maria had created.

For a moment, we stood there in silence watching the blaze.

"Jas?" Alice said, quietly. Jasper looked down at her, expectantly. "You know how I said that you were going to win? Well, I lied."

Startled, I also turned toward Alice.

"I actually saw you losing; everyone died. Well, until the woman outside screamed and everyone got distracted – then this one decided to strike and everything changed. But I thought you should know that I wasn't telling the truth. I just said it because I thought it would give you more confidence in the fight."

Jasper stared at her for a second, and then, shaking his head, laughing, he put his arm around her small shoulders and turned to leave. I stood for a moment longer staring at the fire and then turned to follow, the others right behind me.

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_I hope you liked it! I've never really written fight scenes before this story, so let me know what you think! _


	16. Part I: Chapter 15

_This took forever, I know. I've had it mostly written for a while…it just needed a few finishing touches before I posted it. And then school started up again and totally got in the way. However, here it is. Finally._

_I have to admit right now: I don't love this chapter. So it may change at some point if I find something better for it. But I hope that admission doesn't temper your opinion of it and that you like it anyway. :)  
_

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Chapter 15

I stared out the window of Carlisle's Mercedes, listening to Kristy gushing about how exciting the homecoming game had been. I had decided not to make an appearance at it, but it seemed like I was doomed to get a play by play this evening. Carlisle dropped us off at the school with a cheerful, "Have fun, kids!" I glared at him as I got out of the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jasper give him a similar glare.

After a relatively quick goodbye in Texas, Jasper, Alice, Rosalie and I had gotten back to North Dakota on Sunday afternoon. Just in time, according to Carlisle and Esme, to return to school the next day. Rosalie and Alice got a few days off since they had been kidnapped, but Jasper and I got no such luck. We had argued it for a while, insisting that we should not be required to go to school since we had saved them, but they would not budge. Sometimes, they really were just like parents.

Emmett, Edward and Bella had taken care of the three vampires still in Minot; apparently, Jasper had called them when he had left the house right before Jesse, Christian and Jericho had arrived. All the newborns of the coven were in Arlington, so they had not come across much difficulty in the fight.

Pausing on the sidewalk and looking around, I saw Alice approaching the school with Matthew; Jasper also paused when getting out of the car, and for a moment his gaze locked on Alice, but he simply pursed his lips and turned back to his own date. If nothing else, the kidnapping had managed to effectively end the fight between Alice and Jasper. Although they were both still going to the dance with other people out of obligation and an attempt to keep up the appearance that they were not together, they both forgave and were in relatively good moods. _Well, at least Jasper is in a good mood._ Taking a second look at Alice, I noticed that her smile was seeming rather forced.

Catching her by the door before we entered, I hissed, "Is there something wrong?"

She gave me a nauseated look. "He made me eat food at dinner. I think I'm going to be sick."

"Was it at least bloody?" I inquired politely, doing my best not to laugh to her face.

"It was _pasta_. Disgusting. Ugh." She made a face to emphasize her point and I gave up all pretense of holding back my laughter. "You laugh now, but you just wait until you're forced to eat _food_ one of these days."

Although Jasper and I had just been at dinner with our own dates, we had gotten away with eating relatively little – only a few bites – spending the majority of the time artfully pushing our food around our plates.

"What'd I miss?" Emmett asked, pushing up behind us at the door. "Ah, Matthew – just who I need to talk to."

Ignoring Alice's warning glare, Emmett smiled broadly and firmly grabbed Matthew's elbow, leading him a few steps away. Fully aware that we could hear every word, he said, "Now, the dance ends at 11:00, so I'll expect my little sister home at 10:45. At the latest. One second late, and I'll have your head, understand?" Matthew paled slightly. "Good talk, bro." Emmett good-naturedly patted him on the back and, linking arms with Rosalie, entered the gym.

"I am going to kill him when I get home," Alice muttered, entering the gym on Matthew's arm. I followed a few steps behind with Kristy.

*******

I was finally free. A few of the other freshmen girls that Kristy hung out with had just shown up, so for a few precious moments I was free. I definitely still did not like humans; I thought I had been changing my mind, but spending the last two hours with one was proving me most thoroughly wrong. I found Alice standing over by the refreshment table. Matthew was nowhere in sight so I went over to her.

"I think I am going to go insane. I am not sure she actually has a brain."

"Tell me about it," Alice said, darkly. "All I've heard about since he picked me up for dinner is the damn football game."

"I have gotten the entire game play by play already," I replied. "Jasper is worse off. He has gotten it from Jennifer twice already."

"Lucky. I wish I'd only heard it two times," she said, "Let's switch dates – I can stand talking about clothes and make-up much better than listening to him talk about football."

I laughed. "No, thank you. One run down of the homecoming game is plenty for me. Plus, I do not think he would like me near so much as he seems to like you."

She glowered at me. However, the expression was lost in a second, her eyes glazing over. I settled in to wait the vision out, but was immediately brought back to her by a sudden gasp.

"Jasper."

"What? What did you see?" I asked, slightly frantic at the look on her face.

She did not respond, her eyes glazing over again. A few seconds later, Jasper came up to us. He was tensed as if ready for attack and holding his breath.

"Are you okay?" Alice asked as Jasper approached. I, too, was slightly worried at Jasper's expression.

"Yeah. I think this might be a little too much though. Playing basketball is one thing; dancing with a human – completely different. I'm just trying to decide how impolite it would be to ditch her now." Instantly, I understood what Alice had seen.

"As compared to killing her, I would say that ditching would be perfect manners," I pointed out. "No one can be too upset at you for ditching them to keep them alive."

"I could be sick into the punch bowl," Alice offered, brightly. However, you could tell that the brightness was slightly forced, just barely covering the worry in her voice. "And then you could play the good older brother and help me home. You do have your driver's permit, after all."

"How is upset is Jennifer going to be when I leave? I feel kind of bad for her."

"Oh, don't worry," Alice responded with a smile, "Matthew is going to take her home this evening."

"Well, in that case, it sounds like a wonderful plan to me. But you may want to tone down the theatrics a bit, love. Maybe leave the punch bowl alone." Alice pretended to pout.

"I think I should go home too," I insisted. "I mean, what if I get an overwhelming temptation to drink Kristy's blood?"

"That would work better if you didn't find human blood repulsive," Jasper responded wryly.

"I see how it is. Leave me here alone to fend for myself. Thanks a lot guys."

"Oh, you'll be fine," Alice said. "Lighten up and maybe you'll have a great time."

"Next time I am not going to rescue you, by the way." I shot a glare at Alice and stalked away to find my date, as Alice laughed blithely and rushed off to the ladies' room.

"I hate you," I said as I walked into the house. Jasper and Alice looked up from their seats on the couch. "Pictures. I had to get pictures taken. And if I have to hear one more word about the 'awesome bargains' she got on her shopping trip, I will kill her. I do not care if I do not like human blood – I will drink it if the circumstances call for it."

Alice laughed. "So you had fun, then?"

I glared in response.

"Good," she replied excitedly, pointedly ignoring my glare. "Because there's still prom!"

I could feel my face instantly contort into a mask of horror and Jasper laughed in response. "No, no. I will not go. We will be out of town – because I certainly cannot put up with the two of you fighting over who is going to the dance with whom again."

"Oh, it wasn't that bad of a fight," Alice said, petulantly. "We got over it." She cuddled closer to Jasper on the couch to prove her point.

"Yeah, because you got yourself kidnapped. Otherwise you would still be sending messages to each other through me."

"Touché," Alice replied, conceding the fight with a smile. "You are going to prom though. Trust me. I see these types of things."

*******

On Monday, we went back to school and we continued life as if nothing had ever happened. We went to school – skipping on the sunny days, of course – and spent the evening each in our own pursuits. Mine was mainly reading; I was developing a love for medicine thanks to spending so much time talking with Carlisle and every so often I would go to the hospital with him for his shift and observe.

We moved on to new towns every 5 years or so and, in this way, the years passed, much the same as they had for the Cullens before my arrival; now there was simply another new face at the lunch table.

**********************************************************************************

_I want to let you know that this is NOT the last chapter of the story - it is only the last chapter of this piece of the story. There is plenty more to this story and I will be continuing it. (I actually already have the next chapter written, so it hopefully won't be long before you get the next piece). __And I really will try to update more often. Once I'm caught up with all my schoolwork, I should be able to get back on writing more!  
_

_Please review - I love to hear what you think!!! :)  
_


	17. Part II: Prologue

_Okay, so I know it has been FOREVER since I've updated anything; I had the worst case of writer's block ever. But, things are coming along and I have updates for you. For those of you who have waited for ages - you guys are awesome and thank you for ever-so-patiently bearing with me!_

_I reposted a few chapters of Part II, because a couple things got changed. Nothing major, but change did happen. _

_I hope you think it's worth the wait! Please R&R!_

* * *

I stared idly at my closet thinking of the possible outfit combinations I had to choose from. Definitely the Jimmy Choo boots.

_I am sitting in Chemistry and a pretty blond girl in a cheerleading t-shirt comes up to me. "Ooh, are those a.n.a.?"_

Ugh. These girls aren't going to be able to tell Jimmy Choo from a.n.a.? a.n.a. could be cute and all, but it wasn't Jimmy Choo. May as well wear the Prada heels.

_Bella is in her room choosing her outfit for the day. Edward comes up behind her – _

I immediately covered my eyes and gave a little frustrated shriek. Sometimes I hate my gift – there are some decisions that I would rather not see. Particularly when they involved my brother. Sadly, covering my eyes was not enough to block them. Granted, I'm sure he feels the same every time he catches me thinking about Jasper, but that doesn't give me reason to be any less frustrated with him for making decisions. Back to the shoes.

Not seeing anything particularly eventful happen pertaining to the Prada, I chose them, slipping them onto my feet before dancing over to where Jasper is sitting, reading a book. I kissed him quickly on the nose and he looked up and smiled. I could live for that smile. I already do.

"We start school today!" I whispered, excitedly.

"How you can still be excited about your first day of school is completely beyond me."

"Well, I've never gone to school in Maine before. So it's a totally new experience." I smiled in victory.

"I hate to break it to you love," Jasper said, wrapping his arms around me, "but it's going to be just like school Kiev was."

"No it won't, silly," I chided, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him on the nose again, "it'll be in English, not Russian."

Jasper just shook his head and laughed. He kissed me on the forehead and said, "Well, love, are you ready for your next first day of school?"

I squealed happily in response and, dragging him behind me, hurried down the stairs.

In the living room, I had to wait for Rosalie and Emmett to be ready, since I was only a sophomore and thus would not technically be old enough to drive yet. Jasper and Hunter were also entering school as sophomores. Rose was a senior and Em was a junior; Bella and Edward were going to freshmen. Nessie had decided at the time of the last move to go live in La Push with Jacob. Edward had thrown one of the biggest fits I'd ever seen over that one – he was crabby about it for weeks.

Edward shot me a dirty look as he descended the stairs.

"Well, you were," I replied. I did not have to be able to read thoughts to know what he was thinking. _And she is an adult, you know; she can make her own decisions_. Edward's glare darkened and I smiled smugly in return.

"Can we take my car?" Hunter asked, as he came down the stairs. "Please?"

"Because a corvette wouldn't be at all noticeable," Bella responded, sarcastically.

"It is not _that_ bad," he replied. Hunter really loved that car. I smiled to myself, proud of the gift that Rosalie and I picked out for him. After he'd helped rescue us, Rose and I had been really grateful, so we decided to show it by buying him a car. And buy him a car we did – a Chevrolet Corvette Callaway Sledgehammer, one of the fastest street-legal cars ever made. Actually, we'd had to commission to have another made, since there had been only one ever created. Apparently, it was worth it.

"We're taking my Volvo and the BMW," Edward replied, taking charge as he often did. Being the oldest, he got pushy sometimes. "Not yours, Rose." Rosalie's face fell when he told her that we wouldn't be taking her convertible. I didn't blame her; I felt more than a little disappointment myself. I like flashy cars.

* * *

As soon as walked into the school I saw Hunter tense. A moment later Jasper tensed as well. As I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, the vision hit me.

_We are sitting at the lunch table – _

_ I am at my locker taking out a Chemistry book –_

_ Hunter is walking into class. Suddenly his head turns sharply to the students seated on his left – _

_ Edward is walking down the hall with Bella. Suddenly he stops in his tracks – _

My head was a jumble of images that jumped from one to the next so quickly that I couldn't figure out what was happening in any of them. They kept flashing through my head swiftly, as though someone just couldn't make up their mind. Just as suddenly, they stopped.

"What just happened?"

Edward's voice shook me out of my confusion. "I-I don't know," I responded. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. It was typical that when someone was in a moment of indecision to flip through visions like that, but this was different. I could not tell who couldn't decide something – or what they couldn't decide. And the visions never just stopped like that. Never cut out without warning in the middle of a scene.

"There is another vampire here," Hunter hissed, quietly. I turned to look at him in alarm.

"I can smell him as well," Jasper seconded. I inhaled deeply. For a second, I couldn't tell what they were talking about, but then it hit me. There was one scent mixed into the school that was definitely not human.

"There are tracks all over the school," Hunter said with suspicion.

"Do you hear anything, Edward?" I asked warily. We were all suddenly very on edge. Although we generally did not have any animosity with other vampires, some could be very territorial and we had just invaded his territory.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. I can't hear anyone that could be a vampire at all."

"What if he can block you out?" Bella asked. "Like I can?"

Edward looked at her nervously. "Maybe we should leave."

"Well, we don't know that he's going to cause a problem," Emmett pointed out. "Maybe we should stick it out for a day. If we encounter any problems, then we leave."

Sometimes Emmett could really surprise me with how logical he could be. It wasn't a side of him that usually came out. I nodded in assent, knowing that if I agreed, Jasper would too. With both Jasper and I agreeing, Hunter would also agree to it and I could see Bella nodding her head a second before she did it. Even if Edward and Rosalie said no – neither had entirely decided yet – we were in the majority.

Realizing this, from reading my vision of their assent before they had all indicated their decision, Edward said, "Alright. We stay. But if there is the slightest issue, we leave immediately."

We parted ways – all of us wary – and I headed towards my History class with Jasper and Hunter. None of us spoke to each other for the entire class. The entire time I kept close tabs on everyone's futures, but I did not see anything out of the ordinary. Whatever had happened when I walked into school did not return.


	18. Part II: Chapter 1

Despite my assent to the idea of trusting the unknown vampire, I still had reservations about it. I really only agreed since Jasper did – I trust that Jasper will not make stupid decisions that would put us into danger. He has experienced far too much to do that. However, I had no intentions of simply trusting that the other vampire would have no intentions of destroying us. From my years in the Volturi, I had come to expect violence in response to an invasion of territory like what we were engaging in. I kept all of my senses alert as I walked to my first class with Alice and Jasper. I could smell the tracks of the unknown vampire everywhere – some fresh, other old. Apparently, he had been here for a while.

High school being as easy as it was to us, we had to make no effort to pay attention in history class. Instead, Jasper and I watched Alice from the corners of our eyes as she attempted to use her abilities to see a vision of the stranger and whether or not he was a threat to us. From the slight, frustrated tightening of the skin around her eyes, I could tell that she was being unsuccessful. _Just our luck that he is a shield._ Blocking was a relatively rare talent and even those who had it were often not able to control it as well as he seemed able. Not even Bella, after several years of living with Alice, was able to block her future from her.

History passed quickly with no sign of the stranger. In the hallway, I would occasionally encounter the stronger scent of newer tracks and as I went to my locker before second period Algebra, I noticed that the scent was particularly strong. However, I was disappointed to discover the source was only the locker next to my own. Momentarily, I considered breaking the lock to see what I could learn about him from his locker, but the number of students in the hallway necessitated that my curiosity go unsatisfied.

As I sat down in Chemistry, I also noticed the scent was stronger than usual. He must have sat in the exact same seat in the last period. Idly staring down while the teacher droned on about what we would be learning this year, I noticed that carved into the black tabletop that seemed so characteristic of high school science classrooms was a single word.

_Hi._

To amuse myself, I entertained the idea that it had been written by him and that he knew I would be sitting here. I absently ran my finger over the etching, feeling the small splinters that indicated it had been etched recently. _Probably just some bored kid trying to amuse himself. Cannot say I blame him._

I was lost in my own thoughts and barely noticed that the bell rang. Due to this, I only just made it to my next class in time. Although I could have beaten the rest of the students there, I had decided that the appearance of normality was of more import than Italian.

The scent of him was particularly strong as I neared the class. I walked through the door and the scent was so strong that I snapped my head to my left. And I saw her.

She was even more devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful than is common of our kind. Her short, dark red hair perfectly framed her small face and her alabaster skin almost glowed, giving her the appearance of an angel. Although her clothes were simple – jeans and a white tank top – they fit her slight, but visibly muscled frame perfectly and their simplicity only added to her beauty. Next to her, even Rosalie would seem plain.

When she turned to me, her brilliant topaz eyes met my own and her pink lips turned up in a smile. I suddenly realized that I had been staring at her, mesmerized. Luckily, what had felt like an eternity to me, had in actuality been only a few seconds. I quickly looked around for an empty seat. There was only one – right next to her. _She saved it for me_, the thought came unbidden to my mind. I shook it out of my head and moved to the seat, attempting not to stare at her as I approached. I failed utterly.

"I'm Lily," she said as I sat down.

Lord, but her voice was intoxicating; it took me a moment to even register the words she had said. I tried to introduce myself, but my words caught in my throat.

"You're Hunter, right?"

"How do you know my name?" _Great, Hunter, now you can talk. And of all things to say._ I silently berated myself for embarrassing myself so thoroughly in only a few seconds.

"Maybe it was just a lucky guess." She smiled cryptically and turned her head towards the front of the classroom as the teacher called for attention. Class prevented us from any further talking, but I could not seem to take my eyes off Lily. The minutes dragged as I waited for class to end, signaling my next opportunity to talk to her in hopes of redeeming myself for earlier.

By the end of class, I still had not thought of what I could say to her without sounding like a fool. She, however, took the opportunity instead.

"Class is a real drag when you are already fluent in Italian, huh?"

With that, she gathered her books and with a flippant wave, was gone before I had a chance to even realize that she had just spoken to me in Italian, much less respond.


	19. Part II: Chapter 2

I was the last one of our family to get to the cafeteria for lunch. The others had already gotten their food and were sitting at a table in the corner. I barely noticed that everyone was staring at us – I was used to it by now, it happened at every school – as I walked straight over to them, giving up on even the pretense of getting food. From the look on Alice's face, they knew that I had met Lily and were ready to barrage me with questions. Stopping to get food would only have served to cause them annoyance.

I had no sooner sat down that Alice and Edward started to urgently whisper to me at the same time.

"What is going on? I make anything out of what's going to happen to you – it just keeps skipping bits."

"What's happening? I can't read your thoughts without it constantly skipping pieces."

I paused for a moment in answering them, thinking about the implications of their questions. Apparently Lily was able to block my future and thoughts as well as hers when I was with her.

"You're doing it right now," Edward growled in frustration. "I can't hear a word you're thinking."

_Even more interesting._ He could not even hear my thoughts when I thought about her. I sheepishly admitted to myself that I must have been completely silent to him for the past three quarters of an hour. Both Edward and Alice looked exceedingly frustrated about not being able to use their gifts. They were both very used to seeing or reading whatever they wanted, and apparently did not take to it well when they could not have what they wanted.

I opened my mouth to speak, but then paused for a moment in an attempt to figure out just how I would describe Lily. All the possibilities that came to mind just did not seem to accurately paint the picture. _They should just see for themselves. She is going to come through the door in just a moment anyway._

It had happened again. I had just thought something that made absolutely no sense – almost did not even seem like my thought – but I had an overwhelming feeling was true. I turned to look at the door, noticing that my adoptive siblings all followed suit. A second later Lily came through, looking as perfect as she had in class earlier. More so, in fact, since the motion showed off her extreme gracefulness.

I dimly noticed that the rest of the students in the cafeteria had turned when she entered as well. By this point, most had already turned away, but several – most likely the freshmen not used to her – continued to stare. It bothered me that my hyper-aware senses seemed to dull when she was around. The only possibility I could think of was that it was one of her gifts. After all, she was blocking and dulling both Alice and Edward's gifts. It only made sense that she would have the same effect on mine.

I continued to watch her as she went through the lunch line, lazily picking out food that I knew she would not eat. _I am watching her because I want to make sure that we are safe to be around her_, I thought, feeling the need to justify staring for so long to myself. I saw her smile as she picked up an apple and lost my train of thought. _Well, of course she is beautiful_. After all, our kind was purposefully alluring in order to attract prey. She just happened to be a little more beautiful than even we usually are.

As she began her approach, I turned back to my siblings. Their expressions ranged from Bella's curiosity to Edward's frustration to Jasper's wariness. I had to work to hide my excitement at getting to talk with her again.

"I can't hear anything from her," Edward said, sounding just as frustrated as he looked.

"I'm not doing any better. None of us has a future until after lunch," Alice replied, sounding no happier. "Ugh, I can't even see Hunter until last period."

_Our next two classes are together!_ I could not help but wonder why that idea seemed to make me so pleased.

"Well," Bella said, reasonably, "that means nothing will go too poorly now, because we all make it through the day alive."

It did not look like her comment relieved either Alice or Edward's frustration at all.

She was approaching us at a maddeningly slow pace. In the back of my mind I knew that it was just a human pace, but it seemed ridiculously slow. The closer she got to us, the slower she seemed to move.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally got to us and sat down in the last empty chair at our table. Briefly, I was aware of the other students in the cafeteria looking over at us in surprise. I guess she did not usually sit with anyone at lunchtime. Before I could ponder on this long, I was quickly distracted by her gorgeous, inhumanly white smile.

"Hi. My name is Lily."

She looked directly at Alice when she said this, not seeming to even notice any of the rest of us at the table, I noted with some disappointment.

She continued to stare intently at Alice and a second later, Alice's eyes glazed over as they always did when she was having a vision. We were used to this happening, so none of us thought much of it at the beginning. However, when the vision had not stopped after several minutes, I began to feel a little worried. I did not have to look at Jasper to know how he felt – his agitation was coming off him in waves. When Alice started to bite her lip in confusion? worry? Jasper's alarm could be felt by everyone. Only Edward's restraining hand on his should kept him from trying to shake Alice out of the vision.

Then, abruptly, it stopped. Alice's shoulders slumped a little, and she stared wide-eyed at the table, breathing heavily, out of habit rather than necessity. Somehow, all of us knew that Lily was in some way involved in what Alice had just seen. However, unlike Alice, Lily looked completely unaffected and unconcerned, quite a feat, considering the glare and waves of anger directed at her from Jasper. Even though Alice seemed relatively unharmed, her current expression seemed enough to trigger Jasper's protective side. I fully believed that he would have been across the table in an instant if Emmett had not thrown an arm over his shoulder to keep him in his seat.

Lily smiled to the group and then turned to me. "See you in Government, Hunter." Despite my worry over Alice's condition, I could feel my heart leap a little. With that, she stood up and left the cafeteria.

It took another minute or two for Alice to come out of her reverie. No one ventured to speak as she blinked and few times and looked around as though she was seeing everything for the first time.

"Are you alright, Alice?" Jasper questioned, worriedly. "What just happened?"

"I-I'm fine. I just. Wow. I've never seen something like that before."

"What do you mean? What did you see?" Edward asked with narrowed eyes.

"Everything. I just saw everything, all at once. It was amazing. It was like she showed me every possibility of every decision anyone could ever make. Most of it was just a blur, it went so fast. And it's what she sees all the time, everything."

"Why only you?" Edward asked. "I was blocked from even reading what you saw."

"Because I'm the only one who could have seen it. None of you are used to visions, it would have been too much for you. It was too much for me and I've been having visions for decades. But it was amazing."

"What did she want?" Jasper asked, ever cautious.

"To join our family."


	20. Part II: Chapter 3

"Well, this is certainly interesting. But although we welcome any to our coven, we, of course, cannot be too careful," Carlisle said thoughtfully. "What was your take on her, Alice?"

We were all gathered around the dining room table, having a family meeting, trying to figure out what to do about Lily. Despite the caution that I knew I should feel, I could not help but desperately want the decision to be in her favor. For some reason, it just felt _right_.

"She seemed very genuine to me. She showed me all the possibilities of her joining our family and they turned out well."

"Then she cannot be trusted," Jasper replied. "Of course she would only show us the good; otherwise we may not accept her into the coven."

Sometimes I hated Jasper's ability for reason. Naturally, what he said was perfectly logical, but I still did not like it.

"Well…that's not _entirely_ true. She did show me one or two scenarios that may not have been so great. But they were only a few out of a lot. And I think everything she showed me was true. Trust me, I know visions."

"What did she show you to convince you, Alice?" Alice looked innocently at Edward, feigning confusion at his question. "Don't give me that look. You're fighting hard for her, which means you saw something you liked."

"So maybe I did," Alice responded. "That's just all the more reason why we should invite her to join the family. I was right about Bella, wasn't I?" She grinned, triumphantly, knowing that Edward could not argue that. I could not help but smile a little myself. However, there was something nagging in the back of my mind about the situation, as though there were pieces that I should be connecting, but just could not manage to put together.

"Well, _I_ don't think it's a good idea," Rosalie said, crossing her arms.

"Oh, baby, that's just because she's prettier than you," Emmett replied. "But of course, I totally prefer blonds. And you're still more beautiful overall because of your, uh, lovingness." It was too late; Emmett had already dug his grave. He would definitely be kicked to the couch tonight, so to speak.

"What I don't understand," Bella spoke up, "is how she can have all these special abilities – she can block anyone reading her thoughts and her future, she can see all the possibilities of the future, and who knows what else – and the Volturi haven't gotten her yet."

"Well, that's not entirely true," Alice said, reluctantly. "She kind of briefly showed the idea that she used to be a part of the Volturi, but then she left."

"That settles it then," Edward said, decisively. "She can't be in our family."

As I remembered from my own entry into the coven, the Cullens were less than fond of the Volturi. Although they thought the Volturi necessary in order to keep peace and civilization among the vampires, their personal relationship with them was rather negative. In fact, although the Volturi had allowed Renesmee to live and had left peaceably, the Cullens were still on very unstable ground with them. Renesmee's entire existence was due to Edward's relationship with a human, against Volturi law, and the truce, even friendship, with the werewolves of the Quileute tribe did not help their case. The Volturi were also threatened by the size of the Cullen coven and would have been more than pleased to see them all wiped out – excepting, of course, those that would be useful to them. There was a thinly veiled animosity between them.

"You let me in," I said, pointing out my own background with the vampiric royal family.

"Hunter is correct, Edward," Carlisle said, ever the voice of reason. "We cannot simply refuse her based on her past; not all here have a past that they are proud of."

"Oh my goodness." Suddenly, all the pieces seemed to fall into place. Everyone turned to me and I realized I had spoken aloud. "Oh, I, uh just realized who she is. Lily, how did I not see it? She is Lilana." No one seemed to understand. "Liliana? Liliana Persephonea? The Volturi's greatest failure?"

"You know her, Hunter?" Carlisle asked in the suddenly silent room.

"Well, no, I have never actually met her before today, but I know _of_ her. Everyone in the Volturi guard knows who she is; I thought everyone knew. She is the whole reason they banned venom experimentation back in the 10th century."

"She did experiments on people?" Emmett asked, slightly confused.

"No, Liliana _was_ the ultimate experiment. At least, she supposedly was. No one really knows for sure anymore of much of it is true. The only ones who actually knew her would never speak of her. To be honest, many of us thought that she did not really exist."

"Perhaps you should tell us this story," Carlisle prompted.

"Okay, but this is all just heresy. I do not know how much, if any, of it is actually true. But, Liliana Persephonea was a young girl that the Volturi found and decided to change. The stories vary on how they found her; some say that she was orphaned due to plague, others say they found her in an institution. Some even say she was sentenced to be burned at the stake for being a witch. But how they found her does not really matter. What matters is that they did find her and decided to create the perfect vampire.

"Every vampire carries a little of the personality and talents of the one who made them, so the Volturi hunted down the most talented and powerful of their guard, getting a little venom from each. They raised her until she was a teenager, when they used the combination of their own venom and all the venom they had collected to turn her. Thus, the venom used to change her was a compilation of some of the strongest vampires of the time. They raised her with the intent of her someday becoming their successor, who, when they were tired of actively ruling, would take over. She would rule in their stead, but they would still be the ones behind the scenes, making the decisions.

"However, that is where they failed. They had made her too powerful, too talented. She had no interest in meddling in the affairs of other vampires, nor in being submissive to the Volturi and so, after centuries of living in Volterra, she decided to leave. Obviously, they did not want her to go, but she did not really give them a choice in the matter. They did everything they could to convince her to stay, from begging to bargaining to threatening, but she left anyway. They tried to stop her, of course, but all that ended in was her killing half the guard on her way out. They had been too successful in the experimentation and thus failed to be able to control her, as they had wanted, so they banned venom experimentation to prevent another like her from being created.

"They still want her to come back to them, of course. Every few decades, the Volturi will send a few trackers out to find her and try to bring her back to them. They all return empty-handed, and are summarily executed for failure, if they return at all. Everyone knows that the mission to find Liliana is essentially a death sentence."

"So, you're saying that she wasn't just a part of the Volturi, the Volturi created her?" Emmett asked, breaking the silence.

"She _is_ one of the Volturi. Whether she ever returns or not, she is a member of the ruling family. However, from everything I have ever heard, she has no love lost for the Volturi. It is rumored that on occasion she lets one of the trackers they send live and sends them back with a message, essentially saying that she will sooner be dead then return to them. She left them over a millennium ago and has not stepped foot in Volterra for at least five hundred years."

"Just because she is not allied with the Volturi, does not mean that she is not dangerous."

"I quite agree, Jasper," Carlisle said. I could feel a twinge of disappointment and saw Alice's face fall slightly. We all knew that we would all go along with any decision Carlisle made, whether it is what we wanted to happen or not. "However, I feel that maybe we should give Lily a chance. She has not given us any indication that she means to harm us, nor can we divine that from her past. I believe it would not be a harm to at least temporarily allow her to join us. I trust that you and Edward will be constantly wary enough for all of us that we will not be in any danger from her." Carlisle smiled slightly at Jasper in amusement. I looked around the room and saw that I was correct: no one was going to question Carlisle's judgment. Although we were all equal, we all took Carlisle's word as law.

"I'm so excited that you finally decided!"

We all turned to the entrance of the dining room in alarm to see Lily standing there, with a gorgeous grin on her face. It disturbed me slightly that she was able to walk into the room right behind us without any of us even noticing, but not as much as it perhaps would have. After all, she was Liliana Persephonea, the perfect vampire.

"Oh, how rude of me, I still have not met all of you." She danced over to the head of the table where Carlisle and Esme were sitting. "Hi, I'm Lily. It's so nice to meet both of you."

"The pleasure is all ours, dear," Esme said, standing to embrace her. Ever the mother, Esme treated her just as she treated all her "children" despite the fact that Lily was centuries older than she was. "I suppose we should find you a room."

"No need. I hope you don't mind, but while you were in here talking, I took the liberty of moving some of my things into the downstairs study. After all, all the reasonable possibilities resulted in you deciding to let me join your coven. And you are quite right, even though the upstairs study is larger, I definitely prefer the view from the downstairs one."

"Dear Lord," Edward muttered, "this one is going to be even more annoying than Alice."


	21. Part II: Chapter 4

The sun was beginning to rise by time there was a lull in the conversation. We had all been sitting in the living room, spending the night getting to know the newest member of the coven. I had not spoken much because everything I said seemed to sound wrong or awkward to me. Almost worse was the indulgent smile that Alice would give me every time I made a fool of myself. It was as though she knew something that I did not and she had no intention of telling me.

"I have to get home," Lily said, rising from her seat on the couch.

"But, you are home, dear," Esme said. "This is, after all, your home now."

"Oh, I will be spending most of my time here, it's true, but I technically already have a family here. My foster family took me in last year and it will draw attention if I ran away to a new family all of the sudden. I do believe attention is something we would all like to avoid. And, as such, I have to live with my foster family until I graduate. So, I need to get back before they come to wake me up. I'll be back though." With one last stunning grin, she was out the door.

* * *

I could not wait to get to school; it seemed as though the morning could not go by fast enough. And I was sure that speed-loving Emmett was driving at a snail's pace all the way to school. I would have gotten there quicker by walking.

However, when I arrived and went to my locker, Lily was leaning casually on her own, in perfect imitation of human posture, her hair falling in her face and a small smile on her lips.

"What do you say we skip Italian today? I don't know if I can handle two days of learning the alphabet in a row."

"Y-yeah. Sounds great to me," I stammered, silently cursing myself for suddenly not being able to talk without a stutter.

"I'll meet you out in the parking lot, then," she replied. With a quick wave, she headed off in the direction of her first class.

"See you," I replied, even though she was already gone. _I just keep making such an awful fool of myself around her_, I thought angrily as I headed toward my own first period class. _What is wrong with me?_

"Hey, there. You up for a run?"

"Sure!"_ Ugh, could I have said that with any more enthusiasm?_ Luckily, Lily just laughed lightly at my overzealousness over a run. Apparently, my ability to completely embarrass myself had not decreased over the past couple hours. I had spent the majority of the first three class periods trying to think of something suave or witty to say when we met up; I had managed to come up with a good half dozen lines, all of which I promptly forgot upon seeing her. So, once again, I sounded like a dork. "So, uh, where are we going?"

"My house," she responded, brightly, and started walking towards the woods on the other side of the parking lot.

"I thought you lived in town," I said, catching up with her. "Over that way."

"When have I ever mentioned where I live? Hunter Cullen, have you been stalking me?"

"Uh, um, no. I mean, it is a small town, uh-"

"Calm down," she said with a laugh, "I'm just kidding. Come on." We had reached the woods and she took off at a run. Cursing myself again for embarrassing myself for what I could only assume would be one of the first of many times today, I ran after her.

It was a short run, only twenty or so miles from Hartford, which took little time for us to cover. The entire run was through wooded areas and finally ended in a small clearing with a house in the center and a long driveway leading up to it.

"Welcome to my house," Lily said with a smile and a gesture towards the house. "Come on in." She led me up the porch stairs and into the living room. The house was nicely furnished in a way that gave it a comfortable, homey air.

"So, if you already have a house in Maine, what did you move into our house last night?"

"Oh, just some books and clothes for when I'm there with you all. Then at my foster family's house, I have clothes and other teenage girl stuff. Most of it I never even touch."

"How long have you been in Maine?"

"I bought this house about 10 years ago, when I first saw that this was where I would meet you. However, I have only been living here for the past two or three years and worked out the logistics of the foster family last year, in time to be enrolled in school."

"You knew that the Cullens would move here a decade ago?" I asked, disbelievingly.

"Of course I did. Practically all the possibilities pointed to you moving here. There were some chances that it would not happen, but it was pretty much guaranteed."

"Why did you pick here to meet with the Cullens? Why did you not meet them any other time if you known you were going to for the past ten years?"

Lily laughed. "It was just the time that it was supposed to happen. You cannot rush fate."

I nodded in assent. "Where did you live before you came to Hartford?"

"Anywhere I felt like, really. I have a couple dozen houses all over the world. After fifteen centuries, you want to make sure that you keep your options open," Lily responded with a smile. "I did not know this was to be an interrogation."

"Uh, sorry. I did not mean to," I apologized, cringing.

She laughed, "Don't worry. It is your turn for questioning now. So, why did you come to the Cullens?"

"This is not something you already know? I thought you saw everything."

Lily laughed in response. _Yes! Finally I managed to say something clever._ _It only took forever for it to happen._

"Oh, I do if I want to," she assured me with a smile. "However, it is exhausting to follow everyone every moment of the day, particularly when you are following every possibility of every little thing that could happen. Most of the time, I just try to block it out so I can concentrate on my day."

"I can see how it would make it difficult."

"Ugh, you should feel lucky that you are a tracker and not a seer. There is nothing worse than being in the middle of doing something important or having a good time and then all of a sudden having all your thoughts taken over by other people's lives. But, enough about me. It is your turn now – we were on why you left the Volturi to live with the Cullens."

"Well, uh, it is pretty simple, really," I began, nervous to be talking about myself. It was a lot easier to ask the questions – there were fewer chances that I would make a fool of myself like I seemed so apt to do. "It mainly comes down to the fact that I do not like the taste of human blood. And the Volturi are rather fond of human blood, as you know. Uh, I mean, um-"

"I was wondering when someone was going to mention my somewhat checkered past. You were all so careful not to bring it up last night."

I shrugged sheepishly, "We did not want it to be awkward."

"Oh, no need to worry. Anyone who leaves the Volturi is exciting; I have come to accept that I am intriguing," she said with a laugh.

"Why did you leave the Volturi?" I asked. "No one there will talk about it."

"Now, now," she chided, "it is far more interesting to have everyone guessing. Laying the rumors to rest will just decrease my intrigue. Anyway, I asked you first."

I smiled, my confidence increasing now that I had not embarrassed myself for a few minutes. "It really comes down to the diet; being in the city during dinner was nauseating. I heard about the Cullens and then saw them when the Volturi came to attack them because they thought the Cullens had the vampire child. It put the thought in my mind; eventually, I decided to try my luck and see if they would let me join the family."

"And Carlisle being who he is, they naturally accepted you without a single qualm," she said with a smile.

"I think Alice pled my case well. How did you come to live on animals instead of humans? Each of the Cullens have their reasons; I am naturally repulsed by human blood. What is your story?"

"Oh, I love human blood, I think it is delicious. However, I knew I would come to adopt the vegetarian lifestyle eventually, so I began developing a taste for animals, oh, probably, a century or two ago? I officially switched about when I moved to Hartford, knowing that I would have to get used to it soon."

My phone started vibrating; pulling it out of my pocket, I saw a text from Alice. "Where r u?"

"Oh, wow, lunch is almost over already. They are all wondering where we are."

"We can go back if you want."

"I cannot honestly say that I really want to. Do you think missing a day of school will put us much behind?" I asked, putting as much fake worry into my tone as I could manage.

Lily smiled, "I'm sure we will manage to catch up."

I responded to Alice, letting her know where I was and what my plans were. It was strange to have to tell Alice about my decisions, but Lily's ability to shield had not decreased after joining our family. I looked up to see Lily scrutinizing me with narrowed eyes.

"You miss the Guard, don't you?"

"What would make you think that?" I asked, slightly unnerved that she was able to read me so well. Special talents or not, I thought I hid things pretty well.

"Everything about you. You are a tracker at heart; nothing will ever make you as happy as tracking did. It is the one time that you are always truly happy. It is how real trackers are."

"Real trackers?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," she responded. "There are two types of trackers: real trackers and those who want to be real trackers. Trust me, thanks to the Volturi, I have seen a lot of trackers over the years. The ones who simply wanted to be trackers never found me and returned empty-handed. The real trackers did not give up until they found me."

"Then what happened to them?"

"Naturally, I could not let them return after that; if I wanted to Volturi to know where I was I would never have left. It is unfortunate that they lost so many talented trackers trying."

"Understandable. I must say I am impressed that you managed to have every tracker in the Guard scared of you for centuries after you left. Everyone's worst nightmare was the day they would be sent after you. But, yes, I do miss it, every day. It was worth leaving though."

Her smile was hypnotic. It bothered me that talking to her I lost all track of time and where I was, but I chalked it up to being due to her talents as a shield. We talked for hours, but it seemed like it was barely any time at all. In that time, I embarrassed myself several times, but Lily thankfully either did not notice or was too gracious to acknowledge it. Despite this, I still cursed my seeming ability to make an utter fool of myself practically every time I opened my mouth.


	22. Part II: Chapter 5

"Unfortunately, we have to leave soon. School is almost over and my foster mother will be expecting me home; if I do not get there on time, she is going to worry."

It was strange to think about having to be somewhere to keep someone from worrying. In the Volturi, no one much cared where you were or when, as long as you were doing what was expected of you. Even with the Cullens, Esme was the only one who really worried, but with Alice around, she only worried if Alice saw something bad happening. I had never experienced having to be home at a specific time for no reason other than someone told me I should be.

"Do you usually live with foster families when you move somewhere new?"

"Oh, no, not usually. However, I also do not typically go to high school; I did it a couple times just for the novelty, but I would hire people to be my 'parents' and enroll me in school. The new vegetarian lifestyle kind of forced me to have to find a foster family instead of hiring people, if you catch my meaning."

I nodded in understanding. Of course she would have had to make sure that the people she hired never told anyone about the girl who hired them to act as her parents and before switching to animal blood, it was simply a form of multi-tasking: getting enrolled in school and getting dinner ready all at once.

"What were you usually doing then? How can you keep yourself occupied for so many years?"

"It was not easy," she laughed. "However, I was well-educated by the Volturi, both before and after they turned me. I was taught enough to be able to teach myself new subjects, since, as a woman, there were not many educational opportunities open to me for a very long time. Eventually, when it became available, I began attending college – or the equivalent thereof. Ever since, I have been skipping over the world from university to university, much like you do with high schools. Sometimes, I will take a break from school and get a job, but it can never last for very long because people begin to be suspicious of a 17-year-old looking surgeon or attorney. But, it provides a lot more variety than high school does; there is a lot more choice in classes and a lot more challenge."

"I definitely think that it will be time to go to University soon; I am getting rather bored with high school."

"It is a big difference. And you do not have to come up with silly excuses to skip school every sunny day."

"That would be nice. How do you manage that, by the way? For us, it is easy because we can simply get a note from Carlisle or Esme; how do you get your foster family to let you skip that much school?"

"I just fake being sick; I have the pale, cold skin down without even trying," she responded with a laugh. "They just think that I have a poor constitution; it helps that my chronic illness is in my files from the foster agency. On days like today when I skip, I just send a note to the office about some doctor appointment that I forged."

"They never ask your foster parents about the appointments?"

"They sometimes do, of course. I just, kind of, make sure that they believe they brought me to a doctor's appointment."

"How do you convince them of that?"

"I just project it, just like I projected visions to Alice. I can project visions or thoughts to others. If you do it right, you can project a thought and make the person think it was their own."

I suddenly thought back to the day before when I would occasionally have thoughts that I could not explain as my own. _How many of my thoughts are my own anymore?_

"Don't worry, I don't do it much. Anyway, you will always be able to know when I do it. At least a little bit. It will be like you felt yesterday; a thought that you do not exactly know where it came from, but you just accept it as your own. Vampires are typically more aware of it than humans, some more than others."

_How did she know I was wondering that?_ "Can you read minds too?"

"Oh, no. Well, not per say. Thoughts kind of come through in possibilities of futures a lot of the time. But that is it. However, we do have to go now though or I am going to be late."

I felt a rush of disappointment at the idea of having to leave; I was enjoying the time I was spending with Lily. _That was my own feeling, right? She did not project that on me?_

"No, I cannot project feelings."

"I thought you could not read thoughts?" I asked, slightly on guard.

"There was a possibility that you would ask me aloud, so I knew what you were thinking. I just saved you the trouble of deciding whether or not you should ask."

She locked up the door behind us and started walking back towards the school. Throughout this, I wondered briefly whether she knew what the feeling was that I had been wondering about or just my question about them. It would be rather embarrassing for her to know the disappointment I felt at leaving her. I then hoped that there was no possibility I would be asking about that aloud, so that she would not know what I was thinking. I quickly glanced at her face, but there was no indication that she knew my thoughts. Relieved, I took off at a run towards home, with her right behind me.

* * *

"Cathy, I'm home!" Lily called out as she opened the door of the house her foster family lived in. I saw her foster mother, Cathy, look disapprovingly at her from the kitchen. "Mom, sorry. It takes some getting used to."

The sheepish inflection almost made me believe that she had honestly forgotten what her foster mother wanted to be called. In fact, if I had not known that there was no way her perfect memory would ever fail her so, I would have been convinced of her performance entirely. As it was, she seemed to play the teenage girl to perfection.

"Hello, darling. Who's your friend?" her mother asked, coming into the front hallway. She brushed a stray piece of dark brown hair that had fallen from her ponytail out of her face as she eyed me slightly suspiciously. The suspicion was well-deserved; despite the beauty that draws humans to my kind, there was usually an unexplained feeling a fear that accompanies it.

"This is Hunter Cullen." I smiled slightly and gave a small wave when she said my name, still not used to hearing my real last name – every few rotations of names, we could eventually come back to Cullen. I avoided making a motion to shake her mother's hand, knowing that my skin would feel ice cold to her. "He's new to school, but we are partners in Italian. He's going to study with me today, is that okay?"

"Of course it is. Nice to meet you Hunter." I responded with a mutter in true teenage boy fashion and she turned back to Lily. "Now, Lily, dear, make sure you empty the dishwasher before you run away upstairs."

"Okay, mom," Lily said, with just the right amount of adolescent annoyance in her voice. "Come on," she said to me, leading me into the kitchen, "this will only take me a minute. Here, have some juice while you wait."

"Be careful, Hunter," Cathy said, emerging from the laundry room with a basket of clean clothes to be folded, "That juice is disgusting. I don't know how she drinks it."

"Oh, mom," Lily responded, pouring two large glasses from the container in the fridge, "you know I need to have it for my health. It's full of iron," she added with a smile as she handed me the glass.

With a final shudder, her mother left the room the go fold the laundry. "Come on. Drink up," Lily said to me, gulping down a large mouthful from her own glass.

I had to admit, it smelled delicious. In fact, it smelled like blood. Taking a small sip, I realized that it was blood. She had handed me a large glass of chilled blood.

"Tasty, huh?" she asked. "It's cougar today. The flavors change depending on what I am in the mood for. My parents don't touch it – they obviously find even the smell repulsive – but don't question it because it's a special juice specifically prescribed for my condition."

"I have never had it cold before. I must say, I find it refreshing." I quickly drained my first glass and then a second before she had even started her chores.

"You certainly play your part well," I commented when we were safely upstairs in Lily's room. It also fit perfectly with the teenage girl image; there were clothes and books strewn on the floor in a haphazard way, with the surfaces in the room all littered with make-up and nail polish and hair accessories.

Seeing me look about the room, Lily said, "Does it look casual? I always worry when I mess it up that it will look like I tried too hard."

"No, it looks very natural."

"Good," she said, picking things up and tossing them to other places in the room. Interestingly, none of her work seemed to be aimed at cleaning the room, just moving things around in it. "I know you are going to ask, so before you do: it is so the room looks like I actually live in it. It would get suspicious if everything was always in the same place, so I move it around every time I come in. I mean, half of it I do not actually use." She held up a handful of make-up to illustrate her point. "But, appearances must be kept up."

I settled in on her bed, amused as I watched her toss things about her room. Eventually, she seemed to have decided that it was finished and stood with her hands on her hips and a scrutinizing look on her face. I could not help but stare.

Her silhouette was perfect; her clothing choice understated, but accentuating every curve at the same time. Her short, unnaturally red hair was angled in just such a way that it showed off the perfect curve of her neck, while the face-framing length in the front just barely touched her shoulders. Her face was perfectly angled, with high cheekbones and full lips, that she was currently biting in an unconscious motion that made her look very human except for the way her sharp incisors were biting into her alabaster skin. Her topaz eyes were fringed with long, dark lashes that made it hard to look away. I knew I was staring, but I could not seem to turn away from her. When she turned to me with a satisfied expression on her face, I quickly turned my head as though I had been looking at the room rather than her, hoping it had been a moment when she had not been paying much attention to any visions of me. I fervently hoped that the satisfied smile was due to her work and not to anything she had seen.

"There," she said, "the room is perfectly thrown now; I should not have to mess with it for a while."

"Alice would be appalled to see those clothes all over the floor," I said, trying to keep on subject and ignore my embarrassment at very nearly being caught staring. I could not even come up with a justification for my blatant stare, so I decided to do my best to ignore it.

"Oh, there is no need to worry. All my real clothes are hanging nicely in the closet. These are clothes that were bought for the express purpose of throwing on the floor."

She also settled in on the bed, laying comfortably on a couple pillows, only inches away from me. The conversation flowed easily, with her graciously ignoring or laughing off any of my embarrassing gaffs. There was barely even a lull in conversation until I heard a car pull up and someone enter the house.

"You may want to head out soon. If you don't, you may get stuck having to stay for dinner and, trust me, it is not pleasant. They are vegetarians, so there is no chance of blood being on the menu, unless it's my juice."

"Good plan," I responded, already able to smell the food being fixed in the kitchen. "You coming over to the house tonight?"

"Of course. Alice has plans for me, I do believe. And I think she is a little miffed that I skipped out on her at school today."

We descended the stairs and after a brief introduction to her father (who gave me a far more suspicious glare than her mother had), I headed out the door with a quiet, "See you later," already excited to see her again.


	23. Part II: Interlude I

I watched them, constantly waiting for the day that he realized that he loved her. She had known for so long, but he seemed completely oblivious. I knew I was being ridiculously impatient, just because of what I had seen – even Lily seemed to show no signs of impatience – but I really couldn't help it, so I kept watching and waiting. But every day it was the same as the last. Hunter treated her like a close friend, but sometimes it seemed like he finally saw that it was something more. Lily was incredibly patient about it, pushing only as much as he pushed and giving only as much as he gave. I couldn't understand how she did it.

Typically, when I felt this impatient about things, I did my best to move things along a little bit, even though subtlety wasn't exactly my strong point. A couple weeks ago, I'd been thinking about telling Hunter about what I'd seen and what I knew about his own feelings that he did not seem to get himself, but before I had even been able to make a decision Lily had told me not to. I understood her logic: she had known for centuries, but she was waiting, so I very well could too. I didn't understand why it had to happen this way, but when I asked she would just say, "You cannot rush fate." _Oh, well, she sees more than I do anyway, so I guess she would know better._

The most frustrating part was that I couldn't see when it was going to happen, since Lily's shield abilities blocked me from seeing any futures involving her; it made it incredibly difficult to see Hunter's future since it was so inexorably entangled with hers. All I got to see was what she had shown me on that first day in the cafeteria at school. Edward had been right when he assumed I was pushing so hard for her to join the family because I had seen something I had liked. I saw how happy he was going to be with her and how they were made to be together. Hunter was the whole reason she even wanted to join our family.

I was far from the only one who knew; I may have had the added benefit of seeing the visions of them being together on the day that Lily had first introduced herself to us in the cafeteria, but everyone else had their own suspicions as well. Jasper was the most sure, being able to feel Hunter's feelings better than Hunter did himself. There were days when Jasper almost broke down and told him, but as soon as Lily walked into the room, her patience would overwhelm him and he wouldn't do it. Edward had the same problem with Hunter as I did; Lily was blocking her own thoughts and thoughts of her and Hunter almost never stopped thinking about her. He was practically as silent to Edward as Bella and Lily were.

However, I had to admit that special gifts weren't really necessary to see it; he spent almost every moment with her. Her foster mother expected Hunter home with her every day after school; I was pretty sure that it was only a matter of time before he started having after school chores around the house too. When they weren't there or at our house, they were spending time at Lily's house. Not to mention that I felt like Hunter was skipping more school than he was actually attending; they were always running off together in the middle of the day. Carlisle and Esme didn't argue it because they were so happy to see him happy, not to mention that they were no more patient than the rest of us for him to finally realize it.

In fact, I believe that of everyone who knew, the only person who was waiting patiently was Lily. She had first known of the possibility of being with Hunter _centuries_ ago; long before his human life had even started. She had spent the centuries patiently waiting and watching the future. Once Hunter had become a vampire, the possibilities had narrowed, but she kept waiting, knowing when she was supposed to meet him, the same as I had known when I was supposed to meet Jasper. I trusted that she also knew when he was going to finally come around and realize how he felt, but she wasn't telling.

Unfortunately, that meant we were all stuck just waiting impatiently, watching for the moment he finally realized that he was in love with her too. We would all just have to resist the impulse to help him along and tell him what we already knew. You can't rush fate.


	24. Part II: Chapter 6

"Since when do we let the dogs on the furniture?" I asked, smelling Jacob the second I opened the door. Since our first encounter, Jacob and I had gotten on much better. That first day, he had been convinced that I was somehow a threat to Nessie, but since he had realized I was not going to hurt her and had warmed up to me rather well. In fact, I believe I was actually beginning to like the mangy mutt.

Jacob looked up from where he was lounging in the couch with an amused sneer on his face. "Very funny, bro. How 'bout we take it outside?"

"You sure you're up to that?" Jasper retorted, always looking to start a good fight. "You look like you've gone a little soft on us."

"I've gone soft?" he scoffed, rising from his seat. "I could take both of you. I'll have you crying to Esme before you even realized the fight started."

"Jacob!"

At the sound of Renesmee's angry voice, Jacob immediately sat back down. I could not blame him; her voice had made it sound more like a threat than just his name.

"I told you I don't want you fighting this time! Don't you give me that look, Jacob Black. Last time you fought him you barely limped away with a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder!"

"I healed in about a day. It didn't really do any damage. Anyway, I'm gonna whoop Hunter today."

"You most certainly are not. We discussed this."

Jacob crossed his arms over his chest and settled his massive frame further into the couch with a sullen look on his face and muttered, "Next time." I could not help but laugh at his whispered threat and the dark look that it brought to Nessie's lovely face.

"Let us know when you are let off the leash, pup," I replied, easily ducking to avoid the pillow that he had aimed at my head. "How about you, Jasper? Up for a fight?"

"Always," he replied, happily.

"What, Lily not coming over today?" Edward drawled, as he walked over to Nessie to give her a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hello, darling. I missed you."

"She has stuff to do; she is going to be gone for a day or two."

"What stuff?" he asked, interested.

"She did not say, she just said she was leaving for a few days because she had things she had to do. She would not even say where she went."

"Who's Lily?" Jacob asked.

"She's the latest addition," Alice replied. "Must you look that way just because someone new was added to the family?"

"You aren't allowed to make new vampires. It violates the treaty," Jacob responded. Despite the friendship that had blossomed between his pack and the Cullens, his fierce loyalty still lay with his ancestors.

"We didn't create her, Jake," Bella said patiently. "She came to us to join the coven."

"You would think you'd be a little happier about already existing vampires joining the coven," Edward pointed out. "It means there's one fewer one out there killing humans."

"I suppose you have a point," Jacob grudgingly ceded. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Then pout quietly," Bella responded. "I haven't seen my daughter in ages and I don't want the visit ruined by your complaining."

Jacob made a face at her, which she returned until she got a pillow in the face.

* * *

Lily had only been gone for two days, but I was beginning to miss seeing her and spending time with her. It had been fun hanging out with my family the past couple days, especially with Jacob and Nessie visiting, but it would have been better if Lily had been there too. I could not help but wonder where she had gone and what she was doing. I had unquestioningly accepted it when she first told me about it, but the curiosity had caught up with me when Edward had asked about it. I knew it was none of my business, but I still wanted to know.

"I was showing up in a picture in a newspaper in St. Paul, Minnesota."

At the sound of her voice, I jumped up so quickly the chair I had been sitting in tumbled over. I had not heard her come into the house, and, judging by the massive russet colored werewolf with his front legs up on the coffee table, I was not the only one. "Wh-wh, but, how? What?" _Naturally, my stutter is instantly back._

"I was making an appearance in Minnesota," she said, again, completely ignoring the growling wolf readying to attack her and taking a seat on the sofa. "Since the Volturi seem so intent on trying to find me, every couple years I make sure that I show up somewhere, always looking completely accidental, of course. This way, my last known location is Minnesota, not Maine, so they will naturally send their trackers there instead. Just an annoying precaution."

None of us had yet recovered from her being able to walk into the house without us even realizing it, so no one had made an attempt to calm Jacob. I thought about it briefly, but my mind turned back to Lily too quickly for me to actually make a move towards him. I laboriously attempted to turn my attention back to Jacob.

Naturally, Lily beat me to it. "Mr. Black, will you kindly compose yourself? You are not helping anyone, growling like that."

Jacob seemed taken aback. Still in wolf-form, he sat back on his haunches and stared at her with narrowed eyes. "It's okay, Jake," Bella said, soothingly, recovering from her own shock. "This is Lily. You remember us telling you about her."

With one last menacing look, to which Lily responded with a polite smile, Jake picked up his clothes in his mouth and stalked out of the room.

* * *

It took a while for Jacob to warm up to Lily; I believe it may have been due to the fact that she had shown absolutely no fear of him when he threatened her – his pride was injured. However, Renesmee warmed up to her quickly, taking almost an instant liking to her, completely enthralled with her stories of the many places she had lived.

"Have you ever been in love?" Nessie asked innocently one evening, as Lily sat flipping through a magazine. Peeking over the top of my own book, I saw Alice and Esme both look up in interest. Everyone else was out, Edward, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie hunting, Carlisle at work, and Bella out with Jacob. I could not help but be interested in the answer myself, although I did my best to pretend as though I was not even listening.

"Ah, darling," Lily replied, "when you have lived as long as I have many will have fallen in love with you."

At this, I felt a quick stab of anger? no, something else entirely. Could it have been jealousy? But I had no reason to be jealous. Over the weeks, I had become close with Lily, to be sure, but that was all we were: close friends. She simply understood me better than any of the others; Jasper was the only other one who even came close.

"But did you love any of them?"

"A much more complicated question altogether." Lily gave a small smile to Renesmee and returned to her book. I desperately wished she would answer; after all, many vampires found mates, most of them much younger than she was now. I could not help but wonder if she had ever found one and if she had what had happened to him.

"But you must have gotten lonely. I mean, that long by yourself; you had to have wanted someone. I couldn't imagine life without Jacob," Nessie pushed.

Lily laid her hand on Renesmee's arm and looked into her eyes for a moment, as Renesmee's eyes widened slightly in fear? pity? sadness? I wished for Edward's mind-reading abilities or to be an empath like Jasper so I could at least know what she was feeling. Was she allowing Nessie to see her thoughts that she blocked from everyone around her? Was she showing her how she had lost the love of her life? Or how she had never found one? I longed to know what Nessie was seeing, wishing the whole time that it was the latter rather than the former, although I felt a twinge of guilt at hoping that she had spent the last fifteen hundred years alone. _How could I wish that on someone? But would not that be better than her losing her mate like Marcus had? _I thought about the aged Volturi ruler and how he was nothing more than an empty shell, being that way for as long as I had known him. Apparently he had become that way after the death of his wife. _Yes, _I thought to myself,_ I wish that she has always been alone, because no one deserves that pain and loss._ But no matter how hard I tried, I could not convince even myself that that was really the reason for my wish.

"Nessie, dear," Esme said, rising and taking Nessie's hand and leading her from the room. "Come with me to the kitchen. Let's get something ready for Jacob, he is bound to be hungry by time he gets home."


	25. Part II: Chapter 7

"Jasper, you may want to look into getting the proper papers to move soon," Lily whispered to Jasper one evening. Alice, Jasper, Lily and I were out at the cinema, seeing a ridiculous comedy film. We often would play a sort of cinema roulette, going to the theater and getting tickets to the first movie playing. I tore my attention away from how close her hand, draped carelessly over the armrest of the seat, was to my own to try to concentrate on what she was saying.

"Why would we move so soon? We have only been here a few months," Jasper whispered back. The conversation was quiet enough that the humans around us could not hear them, but Alice and I could easily hear every word.

"Trust me, it would be for the best."

"What's going to happen that's so bad?" Alice asked. I wondered briefly why Alice also would not have had a vision of what happened.

"The police chief is going to be out hunting tomorrow with his son and accidentally shoot Jacob, thinking that he is a wolf. When Jacob runs off, they are going to follow him and they will see him shift back to human form. It's going to be the talk of the town for weeks."

"No one will believe them though, will they?" I asked. "Humans never believe crazy rumors like that."

"No, they never do," Jasper seconded. "It will probably all just blow over in a few weeks. And there is nothing to connect it to us."

"Isn't Jacob being shot what we should be worrying about here," Alice chimed in.

"Jacob will be fine," Lily replied. "Don't worry about him. You need to worry more about it being connected to your family."

"How will it be connected to us though?" Jasper asked.

"If it all goes well, it should not be. But it would be much safer to move on before anything could go wrong."

* * *

"Where is Renesmee?"

It was the day after our movie outing when Lily had suggested that we begin the process of moving to a new area. The move was already well in the works – we were planning to go back to the house in Forks until we found a new place, we would be leaving later that day. Carlisle was going to put in his notice at the hospital on Monday, so he would stay in Maine another couple weeks. I looked around and did not see Renesmee, nor Bella or Edward.

"Alice," Lily asked quietly, "what did you tell her?"

Alice responded to Lily's question with a sheepish look.

"Well, Jake was going to be in trouble, so I just asked her about where he was because if he knew beforehand he could just stay out of the whole situation, but he already left so she and Bella and Edward went after him. That way we can avoid all the troubles." Lily was silent. "That's not how it works, is it?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm afraid it's not. When I said it would not be connected to us if all went well, I meant that Jacob had to be out there alone."

"Sorry," Alice said, quietly, "I didn't realize letting them know would mess it up."

"The blame is with me," Lily replied, "I did not tell you that Nessie and Bella were not to know. It just makes it things more difficult – the rumors will be a lot worse."

"Are the people in town really going to believe the rumors that much?" Alice asked, obviously a little frustrated that she could not it herself, since the Jacob was so involved. As soon as Jacob entered the picture, her visions went black.

Lily was silent for a second, her eyes slightly glazed over as she watched the visions of the possible futures. "No, no Nessie should trip soon – yes, she just did. That is going to slow her, Bella and Edward down enough they will be far enough away from the hunters when Jacob transforms that they won't be clearly seen. But there will still be rumors, and a lot of them. Oh well, it was going to be too late anyway; now that they met we cannot move."

"So, we don't have to move then?" Jasper asked. He had walked into the room a moment before, on the phone when he heard Lily's statement. Looking slightly annoyed, he told the person on the other end of the line that he was not going to need the order after all. _Must have been his guy in Washington._ I had to hand it to him – when it was time to move, Jasper could have it all planned out, down to the smallest detail, within a matter of days.

"Well, now we can't, really," Lily said. "Before they met we could have left, but now – now it's all different. Jake will refuse to leave, so Nessie won't go, so Bella will insist on staying, and goodness knows Edward is not going anywhere without her, so Carlisle and Esme will stay, and then there's the rest of us, staying right where we are. Damn."

"Slow down," I said, at a hesitation in her speech, "who is going to meet? And if no one is going to believe the rumors anyway, why is it so bad that we stay?"

"The same thing will happen that always does when rumors get too bad. The Volturi will have to make sure that the rumors stop. Before they met there was still a chance that we would be able to leave, but it turns out Jacob won't stand for it. Since we won't be leaving the area, all we can do is control the damage as best we can."

"But who met? What does that have to do with us not leaving?" I had not even realized that Emmett and Rosalie were listening until Emmett spoke.

"That is Jacob's story to tell as he chooses. But, for the moment, someone may want to get Carlisle and have him set up for a surgery in his study. And if you won't do well with the blood, you may want to absent yourself from the area for a while; Jake is on his way back."

"I'll go get Carlisle!" Alice volunteered and danced from the room, while Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper made ready to go on a quick run, waiting only for Alice's return. Guessing that Lily was not going to disclose any more than she already had, I grabbed my car keys and headed out of the house as well, despite the fact that I would not have any difficulty with the blood. However, on my way out, I could not but help wonder whether a werewolf's blood would taste animal or human.

* * *

"Carlisle," Jacob began quietly. The rest of us immediately turned to him, as we had all been waiting to hear the story that he had to tell. It had been hours since the bullet had been pulled from his ribs; in fact, he was likely nearly healed by now. "I know how you all feel about werewolves, so I want to ask permission to have the rest of the pack come out and stay here for a while. I need them here, but I don't want to infringe."

"Of course," Carlisle replied courteously. "However, I am quite curious to hear about your day today. And I'm sure if I am curious, the others would die to know, so to speak. If you would be willing to share with us?"

"I found another pack of wolves," Jake said, never one to skirt the issue. His straightforward comment brought about several surprised looks from the group. "I went out for a run and, to be honest, accidentally invaded their territory. But after talking to the Alpha, we discovered that both of our ancestors had evolved into shape-shifters in order to protect our tribes. They had been dormant for nearly a decade until a couple years ago; I believe it was when Lily moved to the area that the gene resurfaced and the young men began transforming."

"Interesting," Carlisle said. I could not help but think that Carlisle seemed to have a flair for understatement. It was very hard to evoke a strong reaction from him. "I would assume that they know about us then? Have we infringed greatly on their land?"

"They do know about you," Jacob affirmed, "but none of you has ventured much into their territory, so they have mainly let you be, albeit watching all your moves very carefully. I told them about your…interesting…diet and the treaty that my grandfather had made between your family and our tribe. They were intrigued by it and decided that they would consider a treaty with you as well, if you were so willing."

"Of course we are," Carlisle assured him. "We don't wish to cause any trouble in the areas where we live."

"I'll let them know then. But I think we should wait until Seth and Leah get here to make the actual treaty discussions; I'm fairly certain they were sincere, but their hatred of the cold ones goes deep, so the more people on our side if it goes bad, the better."

"You may also want to let them know about the rumors that are going to be starting in town, since it may start affecting them as well. If you tell them before they start hearing about them, they will help cover them up as they have for years; if you don't, their willingness to enter into a treaty is going disappear rather quickly."

"I'll go now then," Jake said, standing and heading for the door. "I'll let you know what they say. Leah and Seth should be here by Monday."

"Do we really need any more mutts running around the house?" Rosalie complained darkly to Emmett.

"I heard that, Rose!" Jacob called out as he shut the door behind him.

"Come on, babe," Emmett said, "if they get too annoying we'll just have them go dig some holes in the backyard. Maybe throw 'em a bone or two. It won't be that bad."


	26. Part II: Chapter 8

"Hey there, leeches! How's it goin'?" Seth threw himself onto the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table, perfectly at home.

"Hey, kiddo," Emmett said, hitting him good-naturedly in the back of the head as he walked by the couch. "Where's the rest of the litter?"

"Eh, Embry had this family reunion thing and Quil went along to be with the old ball and chain. Jake told 'em they didn't have to come."

"Seth, Leah," Carlisle said, coming into the room. "So good to see you. We were just heading out for a hunt, you don't mind, do you? The others should be back from town any moment now, but Edward and Hunter are here."

"That's fine, Carlisle," Leah said, taking a seat much more calmly than Seth had.

"Hello, dears." Esme swept into the room, giving Seth a dark look at she headed for the door. Seth immediately dropped his feet from the coffee table.

"Try not to chew up the furniture while we're gone," Emmett called out, ignoring the murderous glare Leah gave him in response.

"And keep your feet off my coffee table," Esme seconded. "Just because I'm not here, doesn't mean I won't know they were up there!"

We filled the time with meaningless chat until Jacob, Nessie and Bella got back from town. I liked Seth; he was a good kid. Leah wasn't so bad, but she had never really warmed up to us like Seth had, so conversation with her was generally pretty one-sided.

"You got here quick – I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow," Jacob said, when he walked into the house and saw Seth and Leah in the living room.

"Well, you said it was urgent, so we hurried," Leah responded, matter-of-factly.

"And I was pretty excited to be back around you anyway. Leah can be a real pain-in-the-butt when you're gone, man."

"Your butt will definitely be in pain when she's through with you for that comment, Seth," Jacob said, laughing.

"Psh, she fights like a girl," Seth replied. From the look on Leah's face, he was definitely going to get it later. From the look on his face, he knew. "Which is, of course, so much tougher than any guy would fight. A girl is a very formidable opponent."

"Don't even try, Seth," Leah said. "That was a pitiful attempt."

Seth looked as though he was about to keep trying anyway, but was silenced when Lily walked in the door. I noticed as soon as she stepped in; the whole room seemed to take on a different feel once she was there. Never one to follow the conventions of politeness, Seth blurted out, "Who're you?"

Jacob responded, "This is Lily; latest addition to the Cullen clan. She has visions, just like Alice, except she can actually see the futures of werewolves as well, so don't be surprised when she makes cryptic little comments that annoy the hell out of you."

"Ah, such a warm introduction. Still a little bitter about me not telling you that you were going to get shot, aren't you?" Lily asked him with a smile.

Jacob ignored her comment. Indicating the newcomers, he said, "This is Seth, and Leah." Much to my annoyance, Seth jumped up to shake her hand. As he sat back down, I heard him whisper to Edward, "Man, she may be a bloodsucker, but she is _beautiful_!"

Leah was far less excited to see a new vampire around, but politely extended her hand as well. After briefly shaking it, Lily stared at Leah for a moment, not really seeing her. A second later, she snapped back to reality. "Well, that is certainly going to make things interesting," she said, turning and moving to take a seat on the loveseat next to me.

"See what I mean?" Jake asked. "Bloody annoying." With one last dark look at Lily, which she returned with a beatific smile, he turned back to Seth and Leah and got down to business, telling them about his encounter with the new pack of wolves. But my attention was already far away from them, entirely focused on the woman sitting only inches away from myself.

* * *

"Morning, Hunter." I did not need to turn from my locker to recognize the silvery voice, and I could not help but smile as relief flooded through me. Even though it was only a few hours each morning that she was gone, it felt like an eternity to me every day. For some reason, when she was gone, I could not stop myself from being anxious. _Anxious about what? It is not like anything is going to happen to her._ But even as I thought this, I knew exactly why I felt so anxious every day.

I was scared she would disappear; decide to leave and not come back. Every time she left, no matter for how short a time, it nearly killed me with anxiety that she would leave us. _No, not us. Me. I am scared that she will leave me._

This thought came as a shock to me. Of course, it was something that I knew, but I had never openly admitted it to myself before. I had always carefully shied away from the thought before; perhaps because of all the other questions that it now seemed to be bringing up in my mind. Like _why_ the thought of her leaving should scare me so much, make me feel so nervous. _Another time,_ I thought, roughly, pushing the thought back, as I realized she was still waiting for a response to her greeting.

"Hi," I said, turning. _Ugh, once again, your eloquent choice of words is astounding_, I berated myself angrily.

However, in response she just flashed her dazzlingly beautiful smile and said, "See you in class," before walking away with a small wave. _My Lord, she looks even more radiant than normal today. _Her bright mood made her golden eyes sparkle. I tried to turn back to getting my books, but I failed miserably, instead watching her until she turned the corner at the end of the hallway. I was unusually aware of several of the human boys watching her make her way down the hall as well, and could not help but feel a wave of anger that they had also seemed to notice that she was extraordinarily gorgeous today.

As usual, as soon as she was out of sight, I felt the anxiety of her leaving consume me. I knew that I would see her again in an hour and a half (she _had_ said she would see me in class), but that did not stop my mind from racing through all the possibilities that could result in this not happening. Everything from a Volturi tracker showing up unannounced to her deciding that she was bored and leaving by her own choice flashed through my head. Once again, I could not help but wonder why her leaving always left me with such feelings of anxiety.

No, not anxiety. Who was I kidding anymore? Certainly not myself. Anxiety did not even begin to describe the outright anguish that I felt when she left. It was like every time she walked away from she, my soul was torn apart.

I slammed my locker shut and started the opposite direction down the hall, towards my class. _Jeez, Hunter, could you _be_ more in love with her?_

I stopped dead in my tracks, barely aware of the human children around me giving me strange looks for my behavior.

_Am I in love with her?_ The answer was unquestionably yes. It was obvious even to myself; I would be surprised if everyone did not already know. I had been irrevocably in love with her since the second I saw her. _Oh, my god. I am in love with her._

I spent the rest of the day even more horribly tongue-tied around Lily than usual. Every time I tried to say something to her, my mind just flashed to how I could possibly tell her how much I loved her. Of course, I would push these thoughts back as soon as they came to the surface, knowing that if I actually entertained one of them for any length of time, it was going to show up in her mind as a possibility of the future. Anyway, I knew it was the one thing I could not tell her. There was no chance that she felt the same way for me. How could she? I was just a friend who never seemed to be able to form a clever sentence when she was around.

* * *

I slumped down in my chair, glowering at the happy couples around me. _Of course, today has to be the day that everyone decides to be at home for the afternoon._ Usually in the afternoons, everyone went off to their own pursuits, but today the whole family had decided to sit around at home. Rosalie and Emmett were staring into each other's eyes, lost in their love for each other. Edward sat at the piano, playing a lullaby that he had written for Bella, as Bella sat on the couch, quietly talking with Reneesme; however, it was obvious that most of her attention was on Edward. Alice and Jasper were off in a corner, laughing with each other about some private joke. Even Carlisle and Esme, reading their separate books, were holding hands. It was almost more than I could handle.

With a growl, I got up – more roughly than was necessary, I had to admit, when I saw everyone's heads instinctively turn in the direction of the sound – and stalked off to the garage and hopped into my Corvette. Not even waiting until I left the driveway before accelerating to a reckless speed, I jerked the wheel to turn the corner, tires squealing, and sped off onto the open road.


	27. Part II: Interlude II

As soon as Hunter left the room, I saw a wide grin stretch across Jasper's face. "What? What?" I asked, desperately wanting to be in on the secret. I had never been good with secrets being kept from me.

"He's finally realized it." My excited gasp wasn't the only one. "Poor kid's in torture because he doesn't think that she could ever love him, but he finally realizes how unquestionably in love he is. Why doesn't this make you happy?"

I followed Jasper's sharp look to see Lily gliding through the door and dejectedly slumping into the chair Hunter had just vacated. _This isn't right_, I fretted. _She should be overjoyed, she's been waiting so long for this. Instead, she's practically despondent._ I cursed her ability to block me from seeing her future. I wanted to know what had changed that would make her respond like this. Briefly, I wondered if Hunter fancied himself in love with someone else – after all, Jasper could only sense feelings, the details were all conjecture – but I dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come. Hunter barely even noticed that we were around anymore, much less any other girl, he was so constantly focused on Lily.

"Because it's all messed up," she muttered.

"What do you mean?" Edward asked. I could tell from his tone that he still got just as frustrated as me over having his talents blocked.

"What do I mean?" Lily laughed, bitterly. "I mean that I have waited, patiently, I might add, not messing with it, for so long and now is has all gone wrong.

"Because the future is a fickle thing. It depends on not just your own actions and decisions, but on those of everyone in the world. No matter how small, or seemingly insignificant or unrelated, they can change everything in the blink of an eye."

We all stared on in mute surprise, as Lily continued, gaining volume and momentum as she went on. "I meddled, even. I'll admit it; this time I finally broke down and meddled. And it very nearly worked too. We were going to move to a little town outside London, we were going to live in a beautiful house with ivy creeping up the front. Esme was going to love that house." She smiled wistfully for a second, and then her look turned dark. "But then, his mother finally bought him that puppy that he's wanted all these years, so he went out to the woods with him to play fetch. And, why, _why_, did dinner have to be ready by 6:30? It was never ready before 7:00. So, he ran home with his new puppy, the stick already forgotten, in simple excitement over grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup."

I looked around quickly, glad I wasn't the only one who looked thoroughly confused.

"And then, he went running and stepped on the stick. And _he_ heard a twig snap where no one should have been. And, suddenly, it was less likely, but there it was, still that glimmer of hope that we could have the ivy. But he insisted on them coming with him. And, then, they met, and it all locked into place. Of course they said yes – how could he say no to her, when every fiber of his being was telling him to do anything she wanted? And then he _finally_ came to his senses, but it's too late, because now here we are…" At the last sentence, she trailed off and slumped back down in her seat.

"What's wrong with here?" Edward asked, seemingly almost afraid his question would upset her more.

Lily looked up at him sharply. "Does this _look_ like London to you?"

She continued more softly, "Everything in the world is inexorably linked together. Everything everyone does has an effect on everyone else's lives. I have sat and watched it happen for so long, trusting that it will all turn out right in the end.

"I put my fate into the hands of a fledgling vampire, trusting that he would be too bloodthirsty to finish his first victim before moving onto the next, leaving the young man alone in the street, going through the agony of transformation, no one even noticing his screams through their own wails of pain and despair as they lost their loved ones to choleric fever. Into the hands of a lonely doctor, who had to try because the boy was alone and dying anyway, trusting that he would be able to stop himself when he should. And trusting that boy would later forgive him for turning him into a monster. Into the hands of an overconfident hunter, trusting he would not hear the bear behind him until it was too late and trusting that as soon as the woman saw him, she would realize her half-life was still worth living and make the difficult trek back home, with her only remaining reason to live.

"I put my fate into the hands of a young girl, locked in an asylum, trusting that she would start singing that hauntingly beautiful tune that a man she did not know would not write for another fifty years. Trusting that tune would catch the attention of a bored tracker, bringing him close enough to finally smell how deliciously sweet her blood was and begin the hunt. Trusting that the aged vampire, so infatuated with the girl, would be able to stop before he killed her himself. Into the hands of a dissatisfied military general, trusting that when he walked into the diner and saw her, he would know she was what he was waiting for, his reason for living – and trusting that he would unquestioningly do anything she asked and could never do anything that would bring her the slightest unhappiness.

"I put my fate into the hands of that same boy who should have died from influenza so many years ago, trusting his love for a human girl would override his instincts to kill. And I put my fate into the hands of that girl, as well, trusting that her love for someone she just met would transcend her sense of self-preservation. I trusted that when she turned to her new sister for help, the woman's own desire for a child would overcome her own self-loathing that had caused her to so completely despise the girl for not understanding what she had, and make her defend that child, to the death, if necessary. I put my fate into the hands of a half-vampire child, trusting that she would be able to prove to others that she was not a danger and should be allowed to live. Into the hands of the Volturi, trusting that, despite their own interests in being there, they would judge the child fairly and return to Italy and that they would not stop even their most talented tracker when he decided to leave, having learned their lesson long ago when they lost the daughter they tried to create for themselves forever because they could not allow her to be free.

"I trusted that the same girl who sang that tune in the asylum all those years ago would fight for that tracker to be made a part of the family, knowing what he would someday mean to the man she loved and trusting that her compassionate adoptive mother would insist on taking him in the second she saw how important it was to the girl."

Lily paused for a second to look at each of us in turn, all of our faces in identical masks of shock at how connected even our own pasts were to her future. "So many pieces had to fall exactly into place for us to get where we are today. And that is just the pieces involving you – and not even close to all of them. If a bored lawyer, who got married too quick to a girl he barely knew, had not hired that new secretary with the penchant for older men stemming from her own father's abandonment, the lawyer's wife would not have walked in on them when she went to the office to surprise him on their anniversary. She would have told her son, 'some other time, sweetie' when he asked for that puppy, instead of buying it for him, hoping that the companion would take his mind off the bitter court battles. And we would be in London right now."

Her voice was now unbearably sad. "But it did happen. So now, having waited one thousand, four hundred and thirty nine years for this moment to finally happen, having spent all that time knowing that this moment was the only thing that really made it worthwhile to stay alive, I still cannot bring myself to be happy. Because now, it can only end one of two ways: with me leaving him or killing him. The only question that remains is which would be more humane."

With that, she stood and walked silently from the room. I saw Reneesme wiping away tears and I instinctively reached up to brush a tear away from my own cheek, even knowing that none were able to fall from my immortal eyes.


	28. Part II: Chapter 9

I had never paid much attention to the school paper before; nothing in it had ever been even close to interesting enough to capture my attention for even a second. This morning when it was handed out in our first period class during announcements, I picked it up to skim through it as usual – despite how boring it was, it was not like history was any more interesting – and froze as I saw the front page. The headline caught my attention immediately.

**Vampires, Werewolves and Witches, Oh My!**

I saw Alice and Jasper exchange a worried look as they received their own copies of the paper. I quickly read through the article, afraid of what it was going to say. And breathed a sigh of relief as I realized that it was nothing more than an piece warning of the dangers of underage drinking during the Halloween festivities coming up at the end of the week. I had never celebrated the silly holidays that humans celebrated, but we tried to be more careful around times like Halloween when humans' minds more quickly and easily jumped to ideas of vampires and other monsters.

I was more aware of the humans around than usual for the rest of the day. I typically ignored the conversations, leaving the vigilance up to Edward who regularly scanned their thoughts to make sure no one started to become suspicious and realize that we were not human. Between Alice and Edward, we had plenty of warning of any possible danger of detection. However, it was a much needed distraction when I sat down next to Lily in Italian. The entire last week had been hell for me; I desperately wanted to avoid her, but hated the idea of being away from her for even a short time. Every time I looked at her, all I could think about was telling her how much I loved her. Focusing on the humans' conversations was able to, at least partially, keep my mind off of it – and hopefully out of her visions.

Still, one look could not hurt, could it?

I turned my head ever-so-slightly to the side to look at her. Any thought of the humans around me was immediately erased from my mind. She sat, leaning back in her seat, twirling her pen around her fingers, a slightly vacant expression on her face. To anyone else in the class, it would simply look like she was as bored with the Italian lecture as the rest of them were; only I could tell that she was really watching visions of the future. I could not help but wonder what she was seeing.

Unlike Alice, who almost always shared what she saw with the rest of us – and, when she did not, Edward knew what she had seen anyway – Lily rarely shared information about her visions, preferring to simply sit back and the allow the events to unfold as they would. She gave no explanation for why she chose not to disclose her visions and, in return, none of us ever asked. We knew that she had some reason why she kept them to herself, so we respected her decision not to share. But that did not keep me from wondering anyway.

It was not long before my mind began to stray to her perfect beauty. The way that she sat in the plastic chair, casually leaning back in her seat, one knee propped up against the front edge of the desk to balance her enough to keep the chair from tipping backwards, her high-heeled shoe dangling carelessly from her foot. How her long, slender fingers with deep crimson polish on the nails moved unconsciously around her pen as she spun it through her fingers. The soft curve of her neck, up to the perfect angle of her jaw, her full, pink lips slightly parted as she stared blankly ahead of her. Her deep ocher eyes, fringed with long dark lashes, were beautiful even when they were unfocused as they were now.

Suddenly she turned her head and her eyes met mine. I could feel my breathing quicken slightly and I knew if I had a heart that could beat, it would be racing right now. Embarrassed as I was for being caught staring, I could not turn away. Gazing into the warm depths of her eyes, I knew I could not turn away if I tried. The corners of her lips turned up in a devastatingly gorgeous smile; I involuntarily smiled in return.

And the bell rang.

The sound of it surprised me and I glanced away for a fraction of a second. I had not realized how long I had been staring at her – the entire period had passed without me even noticing it. I turned back to Lily, but she had already turned away, gathering her books and getting ready to head to lunch. Quickly, I gathered my own books and stood to join her. I walked silently next to her all the way to the cafeteria. _Say something_, I urged myself, but I could think of nothing that did not tell her that I was hopelessly in love with her.

Luckily, as we stood in line to get the food we would not eat, our attention was captured by a conversation some of the human children were having at a nearby table. They were discussing an upcoming Halloween party at one of the girl's houses and someone had asked about our family.

"Do you really think one of the _Cullens_ would come to one of our parties?" one girl, who I recognized as one of the cheerleaders, asked.

One of the other girls at the table – the one who had asked if they should invite us – laughed and replied with, "Yeah, probably not. But think how awesome it would be if they did."

"That's true – it would be, like, the party of the century."

"It would be the party of the century if we could get even one of them to come," another girl seconded.

"Too bad they're all together," the girl hosting the party continued. "Well, except for that Hunter – he's not taken."

"And he's unbelievably gorgeous."

I turned from my place in line to look at the girls, who had all turned their gazes to me. When I looked, they all abruptly turned away and started giggling. _Not taken?_ I silently laughed to myself as I turned back to getting my food. _I must not be as obvious as I thought._ I had been practically certain that everyone could see how wretchedly in love with Lily I was, but apparently the humans in the school were oblivious to it. As I thought it, I looked up at Lily. To find that she had left the line and was already sitting at a table. I noticed with disappointment that it was a table filled with sophomore girls that Alice was sitting at. Trying to fit in by actually interacting with the humans, we alternated sitting together at lunch and sitting with our respective groups of friends. I preferred when we sat together – the group I sat with was different from Lily's group. With a sigh, I looked around for Jasper.

Before we had gotten there, Lily had not done much to interact with the humans; however, when we came, she easily joined Alice and Bella's group. We still stayed slightly apart from the humans – it was not hard, their natural instincts were to not get too close to us – but we made some effort to fit in. I spotted Jasper and headed toward his table, still listening to the conversation about the upcoming Halloween party. A couple of the football players had sat down and entered the conversation.

"You gotta invite that Lily Carmichael girl too. She is smokin'!"

"Like you've got a chance with _her_, bro," one of the other boys responded.

Jasper acknowledged me with a nod as I sat down and turned his attention to the conversation that had caught my interest.

"Man, you'll see. I'm definitely going to tap that."

"Ugh, Blake, you're disgusting," one of the girls replied, as she wrote Lily's name down on the list she was creating.

I felt a hand clamp down hard on my arm; I turned my head to see that Edward had joined us. He was holding tight onto my arm, with a force that would have pulverized the bones in a human, and had a warning look in his eye. Confused, I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing when I saw Alice's wide-eyed expression from across the cafeteria. Then I realized that I had been planning on killing the boy. I had unconsciously decided that I was going to kill him; thinking about it, I became conscious of the fact that not only had the decision to act been made, but I already had a detailed plan as to how I was going to do it.

"Sorry," I muttered and looked down at my tray, trying to settle the murderous rage that was coursing through me. _Jesus, get a grip on yourself, Hunter. _I felt a wave of calm overcome me and smiled wanly at Jasper in gratitude. I definitely needed the help to control my emotions.

_She appreciates the gesture though._ I looked up at Lily, who appeared to be paying no attention to the entire exchange that had just occurred. I could not tell if the thought was my own or hers. I knew that she had seen that I was planning to kill the boy; I could only assume that she knew why as well, but she made no move to indicate that she even knew anything had happened. Did she appreciate my readiness to kill a boy to defend her honor, despite the fact that she did not need my help if she had actually been offended? Suddenly, I thought of the smile she had given me, barely fifteen minutes earlier in Italian and felt happiness fill me, replacing the anger.

I could see Jasper's confusion at my sudden change of mood, but before he could question me, Edward's alarmed gaze caused us to turn our attention back to the humans' conversation.

"What do you think they'll dress as for the party?" one of the girls asked.

"Models. Not like they would actually need costumes to manage that one."

"Vampires – they wouldn't even have to put on the white make-up for it," one of the boys said, clearly not realizing how close to the mark he had just hit.

"Oh, my god, that's so true," the original girl gushed. "They could _totally_ be vampires!"

"They totally could," another girl laughed. "Didn't Devin say that he and his dad saw some of them with that 'werewolf' he saw? It totally fits."

"Werewolves and vampires don't hang out together – they're total enemies. God, haven't you ever seen _Underworld_?"

"Ugh, whatever Blake. Anyway, what are you guys going to dress as. I was thinking I would go as a cheerleader."

"Melissa," one of the other girls said in exasperation, "the point of Halloween is to go as something that you aren't."

Their conversation turned to more innocent topics, and my brothers and I turned to the conversation at our own table, all of us a little on edge.


	29. Part II: Chapter 10

"We have to go."

"Jasper, they don't have any idea how right they are. They were just joking around."

"Joking or not, they're too close. We need to move."

"Jasper," Carlisle said reasonably, backing Alice, "you know we can't just leave that quickly once rumors have started. We have to wait for at least a while before we can go anywhere. Alice, do you see anyone having actual suspicions about us?"

"I don't know. Half of you still want to leave, so until you all come to an actual decision, I don't know what's going to happen."

"Moving will just delay the inevitable," Lily spoke up. Her tone went from one of resignation to one of contemplation, "On the other hand, moving will delay the inevitable."

"And what is the inevitable?" I asked.

But it was too late, Lily was already lost in visions of the future. We all stared at her, impatiently waiting for her to come back to the present.

"We should stay."

"What about that house with the ivy?" Emmett asked. _What house with the ivy?_ I thought, giving Emmett a confused look; I saw Rosalie covertly smack him on the arm.

"Long gone, Emmett, long gone."

Alice changed the subject before I could ask what they were talking about. "So nothing bad will happen if we stay?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, exactly. But if we move, Esme will die."

For a moment there was nothing but a horrified silence. Seemingly oblivious, Lily matter-of-factly continued, "Now, I'm not saying that will not happen if we stay, but it is distinctly less likely."

Interestingly, Esme was the first to recover the ability to speak. "How would I die?"

Lily returned her level gaze. "In few cases, it would be an accidental run-in with some nomads."

"And in the other cases?"

Lily was silent for a moment, continuing to look into Esme's eyes. When Lily did not want to share a vision, we knew better than to push her. However, Esme seemed to have decided that this was one topic where she was going to push. Apparently, Lily either decided that she deserved to know or that Esme was not going to give up, because she continued.

"Most likely, Edward will kill you." Edward's eyes widened and he began to protest, but Lily cut him off. "There are also several scenarios where it would be Alice instead. And in one case it would be Jasper." Her eyes narrowed and she stared off into the distance for a fraction of a second before turning to Jasper. "No, actually, Jasper wouldn't. Fascinating."

"Why's that fascinating?" Jasper asked, tersely.

Lily paused for a moment, as if deciding whether to continue to share the future with us. "If Alice tried to kill Esme, you wouldn't stop her. But if it was your job, you wouldn't do it. However, that means that Alice would, which consequently opens up the distinct possibility of you killing Carlisle."

"What?" he responded with alarm.

"Well, if he kills Alice, do you really think you would let him live? Any way the fight goes, it ends with you winning and Carlisle dying. But, Carlisle," Lily said, turning now to Carlisle, "I must say I did not know you had it in you. For such a compassionate man, you are ruthless when it comes to revenge. It's impressive, actually.

"Long story short, we should stay here. It makes a mess of other things, but it is less likely to end in you killing each other."

We all stood in silence, no one knowing what to say.

The sound of the doorbell shattered the silence. Rosalie, who was closest to the door, moved to open it. She immediately wrinkled her nose. I saw one of the men from the reservation standing in the doorway; I smelled him a second later. Definitely one of the new wolves.

He looked a little unsure of himself, standing in the doorway of the home of his sworn enemies, but he spoke with confidence, "Hi, I'm Doug Atreyis. I was wondering if Jacob was here."

"Like you're really looking for _Jacob_," Lily scoffed.

It was obvious that no one else understood what she was talking about any more than I did, but the young man tensed and his breath caught in his throat.

Suddenly, Edward barked out a short laugh. "Out back. Good luck with that," he called out after the boy as he headed around the house, no longer trying to hold back his laughter.

"What is so funny?" Emmett asked him, irritated.

"You'll all see soon enough," Edward replied, composing himself with some difficulty.

"Sometimes I hate you guys and your damn talents. It's bloody annoying," Emmett muttered with a scowl.

It was a relatively quiet evening – no one really knew what to say after the events of the afternoon. However, despite the silence, no one really felt comfortable leaving either, so we all just sat around the living room, not talking, not doing anything – just sitting.

Lily was standing still as a statue next to the sofa I was sitting on, with the glassy look in her eye that was indicative of her returning to watching the future. Alice was also lost in the future, sitting on the couch with me. Carlisle and Esme sat on the loveseat, Carlisle looking troubled, Esme looking serene with her hand reassuringly resting on his. I was impressed how calmly she took the news of her possible death at the hands of her own children. Edward did not take it quite so well and was pacing back and forth; Jasper was leaning against the wall in the back of the room following Edward's path with his eyes. Bella, Rensemee, Emmett and Rosalie were seated around the room, staring gravely at nothing at all. Only Rensemee and Edward moved. The stillness was almost deafening, despite how naturally it came to us all.

Lily dropped down onto the sofa next to me. Even after the events of the afternoon, I could not help but feel a thrill as she sat down next to me. I could feel her shoulders lightly resting against my arm, where I had it slung across the back of the sofa. It made it difficult to even remember what had happened that afternoon.

I saw Jasper get a wicked glint in his eye and walk across the room towards us. Although there were other open chairs in the room, he squeezed himself in on the end of the sofa, forcing Alice and Lily to scoot over. Lily and I were now sitting so close that we were practically touching. I mentally thanked him, knowing that as thoughtless as it had looked, the action had been entirely purposeful – the humans at school may not have caught on yet, but there was no way that Jasper did not know how wretchedly in love I was with Lily.

I desperately looked around the room, trying to find something to distract me from how close she was to me. Finding nothing else, I started counting the leaves on one of the trees in the yard. I lost count and had to start over from the beginning several times. I had just made it to six hundred and three when Lily's hand dropped from where it had been resting on her leg to the sofa. Although it was a slight movement, I was instantly aware of it because it meant that the back of her hand was now resting against my leg. I quickly stole a glance at her: she was still lost in her visions. I suddenly had to focus all of my concentration on keeping my breathing even. Without even realizing what I was doing, I adjusted my hand on the back of the couch so just my fingertips were resting on her shoulder.

At some point, the dogs came back inside, but even Seth seemed to sense from the atmosphere in the room that he should not ask what had happened. I saw Renesmee and Jacob exchange a significant glance, her hand on his arm; the look on Jacob's face afterward told me that she had filled him in on the afternoon. He would tell Seth and Leah what was going on later. He introduced Doug to us – apparently, he was the Alpha of the local pack. Only Carlisle and Esme had gone to make the treaty with the wolves, so most of us had not met him yet. He was polite, if not exactly nice, knowing that he was in our territory and seriously outnumbered.

He was talking to Jacob about something – no, he was talking to all of us about something. I laboriously pulled my attention away from Lily and tried to focus on what he was saying. It was something about the werewolf rumors going around town.

"Some of my dad's friends from town started asking about them – they wanted to know if he'd seen anything out of the ordinary. He did his best to chalk it up to it people just having overactive imaginations due to it being around Halloween. But apparently some people in town are actually believing the rumors this time since it was the police chief who saw Jacob."

"It isn't the people in town believing them that's going to cause the problems." I was surprised to hear Lily talk – I had not realized she had come out of her trance-like state. Her hand had not moved.

"What do you mean?" he asked, suspiciously.

"The internet can be a terrible thing when you have a secret to keep." She leaned back on the sofa, causing my fingertips resting on her shoulder to shift and now my entire hand was resting on her shoulder. She did not seem to notice the change, but it captured all of my attention. I knew that I should have been paying attention to the exchange happening about the rumors in town, but I could not focus on anything but the feel of her soft skin against my hand.

When I finally managed to turn my attention back to the conversation at hand, I had missed the majority of it. Doug was going to take Jacob to go talk to his dad, but at Renesmee's slightly annoyed look, Jacob changed the plans.

"Is it okay if I send Leah with you instead? I think the woman wants me home tonight," he added in a stage whisper.

"No, no, that's totally fine if Leah comes with. Totally fine," Doug assured quickly. Too quickly, I noticed. And too happily. No wanting to waste any time, Doug and Leah headed to the door; Doug held it open for her with a chivalrous, "Ladies first."

"He certainly seemed happy to take Leah. What the hell was that about?" You could always count on Seth to put the topic out in the open.

"Really, Seth, are you that daft?" Edward asked. "Think about it for a minute."

It was Bella who got it first though. "Oh my god, he imprinted on her?"

"He wouldn't have been here for the last five hours if he really just came to talk to Jacob. That conversation could have happened in a half hour or less."

"Whoa. Good luck to him." Seth's comment pretty much summed it up for all of us.


	30. Part II: Chapter 11

"Hey, Bella. Alice, Hunter," Melissa, one of the girls who had been planning the party in the cafeteria the other day approached the three of us before school started Tuesday. Humans were generally more comfortable around Bella than any of the rest of us – she had been human much more recently, so she had an easier time fitting in. "I just wanted to let you know that I had to cancel the Halloween party I was having. My parents decided not to go out of town this weekend after all. Pretty lame."

"We could have the party at our house," Alice said brightly.

Bella and I turned to her, just as surprised as Melissa. "For real? Your parents wouldn't care if you throw a party?"

"Oh, god no," Alice replied dismissively. "It's Lily's birthday this weekend and Esme said I could throw a little surprise something for her anyway. We can just combine them into one big party. Anyway, Carlisle and Esme totally love Halloween – it's really their holiday." I bit back a laugh.

"Oh my god! That would be amazing! I totally love surprise parties! What do you need me to do for the party? Anything?"

"Just make sure every knows about the location change – I'll take care of the rest!"

"Really? Well, if you need me to do anything else, just let me know. This is totally awesome of you!"

"Oh, Alice loves planning parties – you're practically doing her a favor by letting her do it. Just so you know though, Lily isn't big on presents, so even though it's a surprise party nix on the presents, okay?"

"How can anyone not like presents? But, okay, I guess."

"Tell me about it – everyone likes presents!"

"Okay, I'm going to go let people know! I'll let them know to make sure to keep the surprise party bit a secret!"

"Like it will really make a difference," I said, dryly, after she was out of hearing range. "Alice, how do you expect to throw a surprise party for someone who sees the future?"

"I'm hoping adding in the Halloween party bit might confuse the visions a little and make it less clear."

"You know that will not work."

"Yeah, I know," she said, with a resigned sigh. "Now we just have to talk Carlisle and Esme into it!"

"Wait, you didn't actually ask them yet?" Bella asked.

"Well, no. But they're going to say yes, so what difference does it make if I plan the party before getting permission? Anyway, I can't believe you told her no presents."

"Really, Alice, you know Lily doesn't want presents. In fact, I distinctly remember her saying that she didn't want you do anything for her birthday back when you asked her when it was. You know Lily only sticks to the vegetarian lifestyle for the family – I'm keeping these kids alive."

"I suppose you have a point," Alice conceded, grudgingly.

"How the hell did you manage to talk Carlisle and Esme into this one?" Emmett asked, lifting the keg up into the back of the jeep.

"Simple," Jasper replied with a wicked smile. "The higher the alcohol content, the worse the blood tastes." Emmett started laughing, picking up the second keg in with one hand.

"You guys are terrible," Jacob said, trying to sound disgusted, but not entirely succeeding to hide the amusement in his voice. "Don't forget to look like that keg is actually heavy."

With an exaggeratedly annoyed look, Emmett put a second hand on the barrel. Emmett, Jasper, Jacob and I had been sent on booze duty – although Carlisle and Esme had agreed to let us have alcohol at the party, they refused to actually be the ones to go out and purchase the alcohol, so the task fell to the four of us since the others all looked too young to buy it.

"What other errands does the little woman have for us today?" Emmett asked Jasper as we climbed into the car.

"We have to buy snacks, the decorations she has on this list and pick up the cake."

Jacob glanced over Jasper's shoulder at the list of things we had to buy. "That's a pretty long list man – how many different stores are we going to have to go to get all that?"

"Eight," Jasper replied. In response to Jacob's surprised look, he explained, "She wrote the name of the store and the aisle number where we'll find each of the items. It pays off to have a seer planning your shopping list."

"Man, I love Alice," Emmett seconded. "Let's start with decorations."

"Sounds good. And Alice said to tell you that we are not to buy any decorations not on the list. Apparently you're going to try to bring home some pretty terrible stuff."

"Man, I hate Alice," Emmett responded.

"We can deviate on snacks though, if we see anything good."

"I doubt we are going to find anything good in a grocery store," I replied disdainfully. "Unless it is breathing, of course."

"Speak for yourself, man," Jacob replied. "This is going to be awesome! It's pretty fitting that Halloween is a vampire's birthday."

"It is not, actually," I corrected. "Her birthday is November 1st – Dia de los Muertos."

"Day of the Dead. That's awesome," Emmett said.

"Can we really not get this? It would be wicked sick if we had this," Emmett pleaded, hand on the plastic arm of a life-size, laughing Dracula with glowing red eyes.

"I was told to tell you that you are not to buy anything she does not have on this list. By doing so, I have fulfilled my obligations to my wife, so continue as you see fit. It would be pretty sick to have that in the living room. Not just for this party either – as a permanent fixture."

"Oh, it's coming," Emmett said, picking Dracula up and tucking him under his arm while simultaneously pulling out his phone. "Alice, I'm buying it and there's nothing you can do to stop me."

I could hear a string of profanities on the other end of the line along with some accusations of ruining her party. "Oh, come on. This Dracula is awesome – how can it ruin the party? It will only make it better. Okay, here he is – she wants to talk to you," Emmett said, handing the phone to Jasper.

"Traitor," Jasper whispered as he took the phone. "Hi, sweetheart…Yes, babe, I told him that… Yes, of course I tried to stop him… I'm not lying to you, sweetie… I told him exactly what you told me to tell him… Well, what was I supposed to do? Fight him in the middle of the store?... Why would I ever say something like that to him?... No, sweetie, you must have not been paying close attention, because I definitely did not tell him we should put it in the living room… Okay, I'll tell him that… Yes, we'll be home soon… No, we won't forget the cake… Okay, bye, honey." Jasper hung up the phone and immediately hit Emmett in the back of the head. "I can't believe you would betray your own brother like that!"

"Dude, she asked to talk to you. What was I supposed to say to her? She knew you were standing right next to me!"

"I cannot believe you lied to Alice about telling Emmett it should be in the living room."

"That was not a lie," Jasper replied. "It was a truth, based on a technicality. I told Emmett that it would be sick if Dracula were in the living room, not that it should be in the living room."

"Is that excuse going to work when she is mad at you later?"

"No," he said with a wane smile, "but I can honestly tell her I didn't lie."

A piercing scream ripped through the house, followed by an excited squeal from Alice. "It works!" she cried, clapping her hands together.

"Interesting new addition to the front door," Lily said, calmly ducking to avoid the cobwebs strung up across the doorway to the dining room. Alice had put most of us to work hanging decorations as she danced through the house giving directions. Bella and Nessie had been banished to the kitchen to make refreshments for the human guests, since they actually knew how to cook. Lily took a second to take in the room around her. "Huh, if I didn't know any better, I would think a vampire lived here."

"I didn't know you were coming this afternoon. I thought you were going to be busy until tonight," Alice said, giving me a harsh look. It had been my job to make sure that Lily was going to be busy all afternoon – and, in fact, I had talked to her mother who had promised me she would be kept busy all afternoon. I would have happily kept her busy myself, but Alice insisted that I be here to run errands and help with decorating.

"Oh, I am, don't worry. I just stopped by to tell you that you are going to need a few more candles for the cake."

"Oh," Alice said with a small frown. "How many more?"

"Two hundred and forty-seven. Well, I'll leave you to it then. I'm sure I will be very surprised when I get here at 7:00." With that, she turned and walked out of the house, her departure punctuated by another bloodcurdling shriek.

"Jazz, how many candles do we have left over?"

"Just one."

"Damn. I need you and Hunter to go out and get me 246 more candles then. Now!"

I headed out of the house, ignoring the scream as I opened the front door, Jasper right behind me. As I headed toward the garage, Jasper grabbed my arm. "It's going to be faster if we run – I already bought out all the stores in the area. It's a lot of candles."

"How many did you already buy?"

"Well, we had originally planned for one thousand, four hundred and thirty-nine."

"How is she going to fit all those on a cake?"

"Did you see how big that cake is? There will be plenty of room."

"And how is she going to explain having over 1600 candles on the cake to the human party-goers?"

"On that one, I have no idea. But it's Alice – she'll come up with something."

I shrugged in response and took off into the woods after him.


	31. Part II: Chapter 12

"Oh, my god, guys, this party is amazing. I can't believe your parents actually let you throw this."

Alice, dressed as a fairy, simply smiled in response to Melissa's effusive compliments.

"We do have some pretty awesome parents," Bella replied with a laugh.

I glanced over at where Carlisle and Esme were dancing in the living room, dressed as Gomez and Morticia Addams. For as much as they had originally tried to be responsible 'parents' and argue against the party, they looked like they were having a great time.

"Another drink, mon cher?" Carlisle asked, twirling Esme one last time as the song ended.

"Oui." He took her cup, kissed her hand and headed to the kitchen. There was a special punch in the fridge for the family. Edward and Emmett had spent the entire afternoon out hunting it.

"They are _so_ cute," Melissa gushed.

"Hello, beautiful. Care for a dance?" Jasper came up behind Alice and enfolded her in a hug. "Or perhaps a bite?" He smiled wide to reveal a set of plastic fangs, causing Alice to burst out into peals of laughter.

"Let me know as soon as Lily gets here!" Alice commanded, as Jasper pulled her out to the dance floor.

"Man, Jasper's costume is awesome." I turned to Emmett who had just come up next to me and bit back my laughter.

"What the hell happened to you?"

"Rose got to pick the costumes," he replied with chagrin. He was fully decked out in a flat-brimmed visor and polo with the collar popped. "But it's worth it for what she's wearing."

As he spoke, I looked up to see Rosalie descending the stairs. I could see what he meant.

Next to me, Bella's jaw dropped. "Is she trying to shatter the self-esteem of every girl in the room? Human and non-human alike," she added quiet enough that the humans around us could not hear.

"Oh, probably. That's my 'Malibu Barbie' for you though. Excuse me."

"See you later, Ken," I replied, as he headed off to meet Rosalie at the bottom of the stairs, already holding a glass out for her.  
I impatiently glanced at the clock. It was about one minute until 7:00; Lily would be arriving any second now. As if on cue, Seth, dressed head to toe in camouflage, came running into the room, his dog tags jangling as he skidded to a halt. "She's here!" He paused for a second to look at Melissa. "Hey there, gorgeous. I'm Seth." Melissa giggled in response. I rolled my eyes.

"Oh my god. Everyone hide! Go, go, go!" Alice ordered shooing people around the room. You had to hand it to her, even though she knew full well that Lily would be anything but surprised, she still was going to do this surprise party by the book. "Lily, you're here!"

My breath caught in my throat as I looked up and saw her. She looked absolutely radiant in a long red dress, the height of fashions in the 1930s, that perfectly matched her hair.

"Hey, Alice. Where is everyone? I thought this was going to be a big Halloween party?" Apparently Lily was gracious enough to play along by the book as well.

"SURPRISE!" Lily rearranged her face into the perfect mask of shock, as though she had no idea that there was a room full of people ready to jump up and shout 'surprise'.

"Happy birthday, Lily!" Alice squealed excitedly.

Lily was accosted with people wishing her happy birthday, but eventually the party went on and she was left alone.

"Would you like a drink?" I asked, holding out the cup I had gotten for her.

Her crimson lips turned up in a smile and I almost forgot what I had just asked her. "Thank you, gangster," she said, quickly reaching up to push the brim of my hat down over my eyes before taking the proffered cup.

I righted my fedora before I continued. "That was pretty nice of you to act so surprised."

"Alice worked hard to try and pretend that it could actually be a surprise. It was the least I could do, really."

I smiled. "I would tell you that she has a lot more surprises planned for you tonight, but I am sure you know more about them than I do."

"Probably," she laughed. "So, are you going to ask me to dance? Or is such a pastime too refined for a crime lord like yourself?"

I feigned a look of outrage and adjusted my fedora again. "I do not know what you are talking about – I am, of course, a legitimate businessman. And, as such, I am very classy. And always ready to dance." I plucked the cup from her hand and set it on the table behind her, before leading her out of the dance floor, trying to remember how to breathe the entire way.

"Hi, Leah."

I did not have to look over to the nearby chair where Leah was sitting to recognize the voice as Doug.

"Hey, Doug," she responded, barely glancing up at him.

"Do you want to dance?"

"I'm not really a big fan of dancing." Either she had no idea that he had imprinted on her or she was completely heartless. However, Doug was persistent; he dropped down into the chair next to her and started up conversation.

"That poor guy. Tell me she is going to come around soon," I said to Lily, indicating Leah and Doug – him trying overly hard to get her attention, her barely noticing. I desperately hoped that I was not quite that obvious.

"Oh, that's going to end up being an interesting, convoluted story that's just going to make a mess of all kinds of people's lives."

"The best kind," I replied.

"Sometimes," she agreed, with a sad expression. However, the sadness was gone from her face so quickly that I almost thought I had imagined it.

"Time for my surprise cake," she said with a beautiful smile.

In that instant, the lights switched off and Carlisle, Edward, Emmett and Jasper came into the room from the kitchen, carrying a massive cake, filled with candles. It was really rather over-the-top, but Alice looked so happy that you had to forgive her for it. Esme began leading the group in chorus of 'Happy Birthday to You' as Lily stood up and headed towards the table they were now setting the cake on.

"Jeez, Alice," she said when the song had finished. "Got enough candles on there?"

"Well," Alice replied with a smirk, "you are pretty old. I mean, sixteen? Come on, you're _ancient_. Now make a wish and blow out the candles!"

Lily did as she was told, closing her eyes for a second as she made her wish, and then, taking a deep breath, she blew out the candles to cheers from everyone around. However, it was my eye that she caught when she looked up and smiled. It was a good thing I did not need to breathe because for a moment, I forgot how.

"So, I know you did not want presents or anything, but I got you one anyway," I said, hesitatingly, holding out a small gift-wrapped box.

We were sitting outside in the gazebo on the back lawn. I knew she would not be surprised because she would have already seen that I had gotten it for her. She would also already know what it was. I considered it as a good sign that she smiled and took the box.

She carefully unwrapped it and opened the box to reveal the necklace. I held my breath, waiting for her response.

"It's beautiful. Thank you." She lifted it from the box and handed it to me, lifting her hair from her neck with her free hand. I took the necklace and leaned forward to clasp it around her neck, having trouble keeping my breathing even as I moved so close to her. She smelled so intoxicating that it was difficult to focus on fastening the small metal clasp.

My face was only inches from hers as I looked into her beautiful topaz eyes. I swallowed nervously as I moved one hand from her neck to brush it lightly against her cheek, never looking away from her mesmerizing eyes. She smiled slightly. I leaned forward, ever so slowly, and softly kissed her lips. I felt her sigh slightly and wrap her arms around me. I pulled her closer to me, never wanting the moment to end.

I smiled as I looked into her eyes, afraid to ever let her move away from me. "Lily."

"Yes?" she breathed.

"When the hell did we get a gazebo?"

The sound of her laughter filled the night air. "I was wondering the same thing myself."

I shrugged and pulled her close to me for another kiss.


End file.
